"  '  He  says  he  '11  make  it  a  thousand  *  '* 


PARTNERS 

OF 


BY  CHARLES  D.  STEWART 
tfTHE  FUGITIVE £LACKSMITtl 


THE  CENTURY  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  -    1907 


Copyright,  1907,  by 
THE  CENTURY  Co. 


Published  March,  1907 


THE    DE  VINNE    PRESS 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

i    SAM  APOLOGIZES  TO  THE  PUBLIC  j  AND  BE 
GINS    3 

ii    THE   UPS   AND   DOWNS   OF    CLANCY   THE 

TOSSER 21 

in    SAM  STOPS  TO  VINDICATE  THE  MISSOURI; 

BUT  GETS  STARTED  AGAIN 36 

iv    THE  DEAD  VINEYARD 48 

v   AUNT  LIDDY  HAS  HER  SAY 62 

vi   A  SOUND  IN  THE  DISTANCE— WHAT  CAME 

OF  IT 77 

vii   A  BLACK  FOURTH  OF  JULY 90 

viii    TROUBLE  DOES  SOME  MORE  BREWING    .     .  103 

ix   THE  PIGS  AND  THEIR  PURPOSE    ....  115 

x    THE  SPEED  HAS  A  RUN  FOR  HER  BACON     .  137 

xi    SAM  TALKS  HIMSELF  TO  SLEEP    ....  150 

xii    THE  BUCKET  TAKES  A  HAND 158 

xiii    THE  VICTORY  OF  RED,  WHITE  AND  BLUE    .  166 
xiv    SAM  MAKES  SOME  FINE  DISTINCTIONS    .     .  177 

xv    THE  WHEEL  TAKES  A  TURN 194 

xvi    SAM  RUNS  DOWN  THE  MISSISSIPPI    .    .    .  204 

xvn    CLANCY  BOBS  UP 213 

xvni    THE  CONSOLIDATED  AGGREGATION  ....  226 

xix    THE  PROFESSOR  IN  ACTION 240 

xx   MARY  McKAY  ON  IDIOTS  AND  OTHERS     .     .  260 
xxi   BUSTING  INTO  TENNESSEE 272 

vii 


M30796 


viii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

xxii  How  THE  PROFESSOR  HELD  THE  FORT    .     .  283 

xxiii  SAM  EXPLAINS  THE  DRIFT  OF  IT    ....  298 

xxiv  STUBBS  GETS  SOME  "BUSINESS"    .    .     .    .309 

xxv    SAM  TAKES  HIMSELF  ASIDE 324 

xxvi   NOTHING  TO  Do  BUT  THINK 333 

xxvii  SAM  HAS  AN  ATTACK  OF  EXPLANATION     .  342 

xxviii  SAM  GETS  ON  THE  INSIDE  OF  THINGS    .     .  354 

xxix  A  SWEETLY  SOLEMN  THOUGHT    ....  367 

xxx    CLANCY  BOBS  UP  AGAIN 379 

xxxi    THE  TRAIL  LEADS  UPWARD 389 

xxxii    OH-H-H  CLANCY! 401 

xxxni    ON  THE  TRAIL  OF  A  LADY 417 

xxxiv    THE  GOLDEN  HORSE 430 

xxxv   LITTLE  LOUISE 446 

xxxvi    THE  MARCH  OF  TIME 461 

xxxvii    THE  WAY  OF  A  WOMAN 470 

xxxvni  SAM  TAKES  ON  A  LOAD  OF  RESPONSIBILITY  .  481 

xxxix  CLANCY  GETS  ALL  BASES  COVERED     .     .     .  488 

XL   AN  EVENING  AT  HOME .  497 

XLI    JIM 507 

XLII  ALL  HANDS  ON  DECK                                    .  525 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

' '  '  He  says  he  '11  make  it  a  thousand '  ' '     .     .    Frontispiece 

PAGE 
Writing  a  book  about  it  5 

' '  I  missed  the  boat ' ' 7 

"  You  watch  the  smoke  climbing  up  the  wall"     ...  11 

"  Then  Valdes  laid  back  again  and  just  watched"     .     .  12 

"  Things  did  come  along  pretty  good  for  a  while"     .  17 

' '  '  The  way  I  came  across  Rags, '  I  says, '  was  this '  "     .  22 

The  Catcher 24 

'-'  'Good  diving?'  he  says" 26 

' '  He  got  it  all  read  up  before  he  got  through  with  the 

meat" 29 

' '  I  had  a  hard  time  holding  him  back " 34 

Biggs '  Landing 40 

"  'Who  dah?' she  says" 43 

The  Dead  Vineyard 51 

"  He  sat  looking  at  the  picture" 56 

"  'She  kiss  me  good-bye'" 68 

'-'  'He pison  the  vines'  " 72 

' '  No  Blackf eet  Indians  could  shoot  through  that  boat ' '  79 

< '  Blue  and  Eed  toting  a  bin  " 83 

"The  fat  captain  in  his  arm-chair" 86 

' '  To  wet  the  pilot 's  whistle  " 88 

"  All  lined  around  the  edge  with  roustabouts"     .     .     .  92 

* l  That  crew  commenced  to  turn  solemn  " 95 

"  Two  niggers  out  in  the  yawl" 97 

"  ' No  chicken  nohow!  '" 100 

ix 


x  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

The  engineer 104 

tl  Valdes  looking  down"         107 

"  'Goin'  to  do  it  now,  Cap?'  " 113 

Going  for  the  shoats 116 

' '  When   1   showed   him   the   money   he   changed   right 

over" 118 

Bringing  in  the  shoats        . 122 

"  Griswold  took  his  place  with  the  barrel-stave"     .     .  126 

"  I  seen  he  did  n't  know  nothing" 130 

' '  And  the  pilot  has  got  to  know  all  about  it "    .     .     .  133 

' '  We  was  plum '  onto  her  " 138 

'•'  'I  has  it  right  heah'  " 141 

"  Shoving  in  the  cord-wood" 143 

"  A-coaxing  the  boat  along" .     .  144 

"  'Sho-o-oveit  in!  '  " 147 

The  safety  valve 149 

' '  The  pilot-house  of  the  Benton  " 153 

"  I  give  him  up" 156 

' f  The  bucket  bobbing  up  and  down  on  the  waves  "    .     .  163 

"  It  was  an  awful  sweet-smelling  town" 168 

"  'Jes'  lak  a  li'l  chile'  " 173 

11  'I  jes'  had  to  lambaste  you'  " 175 

11  Which  I  took  chocolate" 184 

"  I  took  the  winding  stairs" 193 

"  '  She  come  huhse  'f  to  see  who  dah '  " 198 

"  'A  job!  '  he  says,  drawing  back  the  trigger"     .     .     .201 
"  I  seen  it  was  part  of  my  work" 206 

The  pilot's  picture  of  the  fat  man 208 

1 1  And  it  a-playing  all  the  time  " 210 

' '  It  was  Clancy  " 218 

* '  I  sat  and  watched  it " 223 

"  I  seen  somebody  already  had  it" 227 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


XI 


PAGE 

11  The  fat  lady  patted  me  on  the  head" 230 

lt  They  need  n't  think  she  was  that  kind  at  all"     .     .  235 

11  Next  to  things" 237 

' '  And  went  to  sleep " 238 

' '  Her  hair  all  tied  up  in  curl  papers  " 242 

' '  And  come  out  of  it  on  a  back  somersault "     .     .     .     .  245 

<"  We  have  them  all"' 247 

"  'How  would  you  like  to  be  a  human  dictionary?'  "     .  253 

' '  Put  a  plank  out  and  came  aboard " 262 

1 '  Over  the  Natchez  and  Nashville  trace  " 268 

"  'Have  ye  no  shtrong  man  in  yer  show?'  "     .     .     .     .  275 
st  When  she  jiggled  something  had  to  come  "    .     .     .     .  281 

The  Circus 289 

1 '  He    'd  be  blamed  if  he  could  be  a  whole  minstrel 

show" 292 

"  Next  jump  it  went  up  about  a  foot" 295 

"  'With  a  chunk  in  my  arms'  " 304 

"  The  Giant  and  the  Tattooed  Man  had  skipped"     .     .  308 

"  Carrying  a  big  frosted  cake" 311 

"  He  dropped  it  mighty  quick" 318 

fi  The  sun  was  going  down  over  the  edge"     ....  330 

"  One  of  the  Governor's  roses" 339 

' '  I  seen  his  yellow  freckled  face " 345 

"  You   'd  think  we  was  feeding  wild  animals"     .     .     .  352 

' '  The  best  I  could  do  was  George  " 361 

' '  The  main  thing  is  the  laborinth " 364 

' '  The  levee  was  all  made  up  for  the  night "     .     .     .     .368 
"  I  guessed  I  would  just  take  the  ten  cents"     .     .     .  377 

"  'Are  ye  at  home?'  " 387 

"  Once  he  was  a  clerk  in  a  bank" 393 

"  I  bet  he  would   'a'  bit" 398 

"  'Oh,  Clancy!'  I  says" 402 


xii  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

"  'Go  and  make  a  try'  " 412 

"  I  laid  on  my  back" 427 

"  Everything  was  old  and  empty" 438 

"  'Once  upon  a  time'  " 444 

"  The  edge  of  the  river" 451 

The  tailor 455 

"  Mis '  Effie  went  and  looked  at  it " 467 

"  'I  don't  see  it,'  she  says" 475 

"  She   was   awful   surprised" 479 

"  '  Kid  with  me  in  N.  O. '  " 490 

' '  She  was  looking  down  at  the  water  pouring  "...  502 

"  Clancy  listened  to  every  word  " 512 

"  'God  loves  a  cheerful  bluffer'  " 517 

"  'Dig up!'  " 527 

"  To  let"  .    .  537 


PARTNERS  OP  PROVIDENCE 


CHAPTER  I 

SAM  APOLOGIZES  TO  THE  PUBLIC ,  AND  BEGINS 

LKINS  says  to  me  "Why  don't 
you  write  a  book  about  it?" 

He  claims  that  if  I  would 
just  start  in  and  tell  the  whole 
business  and  let  out  about  all  the 
low-down  people  and  the  way-up 
folks  I  got  in  with,  and  how  it 
happened,  nobody  would  believe 
it,  and  they  would  all  say  it  was 
a  great  story  book. 

My  name  is  Sam  Daly  and  it  is  over  a  year  now 
since  I  got  into  the  Valdes  mix-up :  because  I  was 
only  going  on  fourteen  then  and  now  I  am  going  on 
fifteen.  Elkins  is  head  pilot  on  the  Woodland: 
he  has  got  a  day  and  night  license  and  knows  the 
river  like  a  book  from  St.  Louis  down  to  the  foot  of 

3 


,*l\ . :  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

Canal  Street.  That  is  about  twelve  hundred  miles— 
it  usually  stays  about  that.  He  knows  the  number 
of  any  island  from  Number  One  down  into  the  Hun- 
dred-and-twenties,  and  what  Elkins  says  is  all  right. 
And  they  only  numbered  the  ones  that  did  n  't  have 
any  names. 

Well,  I  chewed  up  pretty  near  all  of  a  five-cent 
lead  pencil  and  did  n't  get  anything  down;  and 
then  Elkins  come  along  and  said  it  was  all  foolish 
ness  to  do  so  much  thinking  about  it.  He  told  me 
how. 

" Start  her  up  full  steam  ahead,"  he  says,  "and 
take  what  comes.  You  was  raised  on  a  crooked 
river  and  so  you  have  got  to  tell  a  crooked  story. 
Nobody  would  expect  you  to  go  straight  ahead  at  it, 
like  a  fellow  that  was  raised  on  a  canal. ' ' 

Elkins  meant  the  Mississippi,  I  guess— and  that 
is  pretty  crooked  when  it  tries.  Half  the  time 
you  'd  think  you  was  traveling  on  a  return-trip 
ticket  and  using  it  all  up  at  once.  I  am  writh  him 
now;  but  by  rights  I  was  raised  on  the  Missouri, 
where  it  is  so  crooked  you  cross  your  own  smoke. 
You  can  lay  in  your  bunk  and  tell  the  name  of  a 
boat  that  has  got  miles  to  come  around  a  bend— that 
is,  if  you  know  her  pipes.  But  crooked  or  no 
crooked  I  have  noticed  that,  however  it  does  it,  the 
Missouri  always  manages  to  come  out  just  above 
St.  Louis  at  the  waterworks ;  and  Clancy  (which 
ain't  no  pilot  at  all,  but  I  will  tell  you  about  him 
afterwards),  he  said  it  wTas  a  wise  old  river  to  know 
the  way  to  its  mouth.  It  is  pretty  uncertain  and 
shifty  and  sometimes  that  Valdes  trouble  looked 


SAM  APOLOGIZES  TO   THE  PUBLIC          5 

the  same  way  to  me— you  could  n't  tell  HOW  it 
was  going  to  come  out. 

Elkins   is  kind  of  that  way  himself— which  I 
mean  that  he  is  hard  to  make  out— and  after  he  has 


Writing  a  book  about  it 


told  you  to  grease  the  rudders  and  find  the  lid  to 
the  smoke-stack  you  don't  know  any  more  when  he 
IS  serious.  But  he  kept  at  me  about  the  book ;  so  I 
guessed  he  meant  it.  But  I  did  n't  really  know 
whether  he  was  giving  me  the  wrong  bell  or  not. 

After  I  was  at  it  and  did  n't  come  along,  he 
opened  it  up  and  seen  it  was  all  blank. 


6  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

' '  What  is  the  matter ;  why  don 't  you  go  ahead  ? ' ' 
he  says. 

"That  is  all  right,"  I  says,  "but  I  can't  find  the 
place." 

"What  place?"  he  says. 

1 '  The  place  to  begin, ' '  I  says. 

You  see  I  never  knew  when  I  was  doing  them 
things  that  it  would  ever  be  a  story;  so  I  just  let 
things  fool  along.  Why,  when  I  first  met  Clancy 
the  Tosser  I  did  n't  know  he  was  going  to  be  in  a 
book. 

"Go  ahead,"  Elkins  says.  "If  you  run  up 
against  it,  spar  off  and  keep  a-going.  Knowing 
how  ain't  necessary  when  you  are  just  sticking  to 
facts.  Spar  off  and  keep  trying  till  you  get  into 
the  main  channel ;  you  '11  strike  it  easy  and  get  to 
New  Orleans  in  the  end.  And  if  anybody  asks 
questions,  tell  them  I  signed  your  papers." 

When  he  said  that  I  seen  he  meant  it;  so  here 
goes.  But  the  clerk  on  the  Speed  would  n't  'a'  let 
me  write  a  bill  of  lading. 

One  time  when  I  was  a  cub  on  the  Speed  I  missed 
the  boat  on  accounts  of  staying  up-town  too  long. 
I  got  back  to  the  St.  Louis  levee  just  in  time  to  see 
her  heading  for  the  Missouri  and  kicking  her  skirts 
up  behind  her  at  the  rate  of  twelve  miles  an  hour. 
That  was  along  towards  early  in  summer,  which 
I  remember  because  it  was  going  to  be  Fourth  of 
July  that  trip  and  the  captain  had  taken  on  a  coop 
of  chickens  at  Biggs'  Landing  to  give  the  niggers 
a  feed;  and  besides  it  would  make  them  hustle  at 
the  landings.  Ours  was  a  crap-shooting  boat — 


SAM  APOLOGIZES  TO  THE  PUBLIC  7 

which  can  get  niggers  easier  than  some— and  our 
captain  done  them  things  and  knew  his  business. 
I  thought  of  the  chickens  the  first  thing  because  I 
was  hungry  and  did  n't  have  any  money  except 
what  I  had  spent;  and  I  says  to  myself,  "That  is 
what  you  get  for  looking  at  John  L.  Sullivan's 
pants."  They  were  hanging  in  a  window  with  a 
sign  saying,  ''These  pants  made  for  John  L.  Sulli 
van";  and  I  got  so  interested  in  them  that  I  forgot 
the  time  to  get  back. 


I  missed  the  boat" 


Well,  there  was  n't  anything  for  me  to  do  but 
work  my  way  up  on  the  Muscoutah,  that  was  run 
ning  opposition  to  us  on  the  lower  river.  I  thought 
I  'd  get  off  at  Madison  City  and  catch  the  Speed 
on  the  down  trip.  She  was  sure  to  stop  there ; 
and  that  way  I  would  n  't  be  gone  from  her  so  long. 

The  captain  of  the  Muscoutah  did  n't  answer  me 
for  a  while.  He  just  let  me  stand  around  and  then 
he  says,  ' '  Go  and  see  the  pilot. ' '  Well,  I  knew  how 


8  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

to  do  that.  You  don 't  want  to  get  too  familiar  with 
a  pilot  unless  you  've  got  a  license  to  talk.  He  's  a 
man*  that  is  used  to  being  in  a  glass  case,  and  all  he 
wants  is  a  pitcher  of  ice-water  and  a  place  to  spit. 
He  was  sitting  up  there  all  alone  waiting  to  start 
and  reading  the  river  news ;  so  I  did  n  't  say  nothing 
but  took  his  water-pitcher  and  came  back  up  the 
stairs  with  the  ice  clinking  in  it  and  got  him  a  fresh 
box  of  sawdust.  Then  I  sat  down  at  the  other  end 
of  the  leather  seat  to  see  how  it  would  maybe  turn 
out. 

He  did  n't  say  anything.  I  did  n't  say  anything 
too;  and  we  kept  it  up  for  a  long  time  till  we 
were  both  pretty  well  acquainted.  Then  he  turned 
the  paper  over  and  spit  and  took  a  drink  of  water 
and  said,  "The  hell  with  the  insurance  companies." 
I  could  see  right  away  that  he  was  going  to  take  me ; 
that  showed  it  was  all  right  for  me  to  be  around. 
So  then  I  spit  in  the  box  and  made  myself  at  home. 

That  's  how  I  got  on  that  boat  and  came  to  get 
acquainted  with  a  man  by  the  name  of  Manuel 
Valdes.  There  were  only  a  few  other  passengers, 
and  I  took  notice  of  him  right  away  when  I  seen 
him  coming  up  the  gang-plank.  He  was  pretty 
fine  looking,  and  dark,  and  had  a  high-toned  way 
that  showed  he  was  n't  common  folks— and  I 
did  n't  know  but  he  might  be  a  down-river  gam 
bler.  Some  of  them  are  pretty  tony  gentlemen, 
and  as  cool  as  a  pilot.  I  have  seen  some  that  could 
let  a  thousand  come  or  go  without  seeming  to  notice 
it.  You  'd  think  they  did  n't  mind  it  no  more  than 
scraping  on  a  mud-bank. 


SAM  APOLOGIZES  TO  THE  PUBLIC     9 

Well,  that  afternoon  I  got  to  talking  to  him  and 
I  found  that  he  had  intended  to  take  the  Speed, 
but  missed  it.  And  when  he  found  out  that  I  was 
left  by  the  boat,  too,  he  sort  of  took  up  with  me, 
saying  something  or  nodding  whenever  he  passed. 
And  after  a  while,  when  the  Muscoutah  was  laying 
down  to  a  good  steady  gait  up  the  Missouri— but 
you  bet  she  can't  ever  come  it  over  the  Speed- 
he  asked  a  lot  of  questions  about  my  boat ;  and 
when  he  found  I  knew  some  people  he  did,  he  got 
to  talking  about  old  times  and  people  that  was  away 
before  my  day. 

"Come  on  up  with  me  to  Biggs'  Landing,"  he 
says. 

"What  for?"  I  says. 

"Just  for  company  and  to  pass  the  time,"  he 
says.  "  I  'm  going  back  to  my  place  and  I  '11  take 
you  up  there. ' ' 

"Where  is  your  place?"  I  says. 

"It  is  n't  a  great  distance  from  the  Landing- 
half  a  mile  or  so  below.  Do  you  know  where  the 
range  of  bluff  is  that  is  all  flat  rock,  like  a  wall  to 
the  river,  with  the  bore-hole  away  up  on  the  face 
of  it?" 

Well,  I  should  say  I  did.  But  I  did  n't  let  on 
what  I  knew  about  it.  There  's  too  many  bore 
holes  for  anybody  to  think  that  you  kept  track  of 
them,  anyway;  but  I  knew  that  one  because  that 
was  where  I  threw  the  hog-chain  bolt.  It  went  all 
the  way  up  and  plump  into  the  mouth  of  it— I  knew 
how  to  swing  it  between  my  legs— and  when  the 
captain  missed  it  he  raised  Cain  about  where  it 


10  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

was  gone  to.  And  the  mate,  that  I  caught  seeing 
me,  never  told— and  that  was  mighty  strange  till 
I  found  out  some  things.  But  I  did  n't  say  nothing 
about  that  part. 

We  always  ran  in  close  to  the  face  of  that  bluff 
on  the  down  trip,  because  the  current  works  against 
it  and  scoops  out  the  main  channel  there.  And  it 
is  so  high  and  flat  that  you  can  watch  the  smoke 
climbing  up  the  wall  to  the  scrub  pine  at  the  edge. 
And  the  bore-hole  looks  out  over  the  river  as  round 
and  dark  as  a  well,  and  as  perfect  as  if  somebody 
had  made  it.  But  it  is  smoothed  off  nicer  at  the 
edges  than  anybody  but  God  would  take  the  trouble 
to  do.  All  of  them  are,  and  you  want  to  throw 
something  into  them.  Well,  I  always  wanted  to  let 
myself  down  and  look  into  one  of  them  bore-holes 
and  see  how  they  was  made  and  what  for ;  I  would 
'a'  gone  in  a  minute  but  I  guessed  I  had  better 
think  it  over. 

"Yes,  I  've  seen  it  once  or  twice,"  I  says.  "But 
I  ain't  going  up  that  far.  I  am  going  to  get  off  at 
Madison  City.  And  I  am  going  to  wait  there  be 
cause  the  Speed  always  stops  there  on  the  down- 
trip.  And  she  don't  often  stop  at  that  other 
place." 

"You  want  to  catch  her  soon,  don't  you?  Well, 
that  is  one  reason  I  asked  you  to  come ;  I  am  going 
to  flag  her  on  the  way  down.  So  if  you  went  up 
that  far  you  'd  catch  your  boat  that  much  sooner. 
You  can  come  with  me  if  you  want  to :  I  '11  see  you 
on  her,  my  boy.  Think  it  over. ' ' 

Well,  I  did  n't  care  very  much  whether  I  caught 


SAM  APOLOGIZES  TO  THE  PUBLIC          11 

the  Speed  sooner  or  not,  as  far  as  I  was  concerned ; 
but  I  was  worrying  about  Rags.     Rags  is  kind  of 


You  watch  the  smoke  climbing  up  the  wall" 


deaf,  so  that  he  can't  always  hear  when  you  tell 
him  to  get  out  of  the  way;  and  I  was  afraid  that 
maybe  the  mate  or  some  of  the  niggers  would  be 


"  Then  Valdes  laid  back  again  and  just  watched 


SAM  APOLOGIZES  TO  THE  PUBLIC         13 

kicking  him  around  while  I  was  away.  He  got  deaf 
swimming  too  much  with  Clancy ;  and  he  is  so  bad 
that  when  you  put  him  through  his  tricks  you  have 
to  give  him  the  commands  like  he  was  a  whole  regi 
ment.  He  is  a  smart  dog,  though,  even  if  the  cap 
tain  does  say  he  looks  like  a  Yak.  I  never  seen  a 
Yak.  But  when  I  got  to  thinking  about  him  being 
alone,  I  guessed  maybe  I  had  better  get  back  as  soon 
as  possible. 

So  that  afternoon  when  Valdes  came  up  and  sat 
down  on  the  big  leather  seat  that  is  built  along  one 
side  of  the  pilot-house  back  of  the  wheel,  I  got  to 
studying  him  out.  He  had  on  a  fine  ring,  and  a 
gold-tipped  pencil  sticking  out  of  his  pocket.  It 
seemed  like  I  could  smell  paper  money  whenever  he 
was  around.  He  looked  to  me  like  he  was  pretty 
much  on  the  square  if  he  liked  you;  but  I  bet  he 
would  be  a  bad  one  to  play  crooked  with.  He  had 
a  steady  eye  like  a  pilot,  but  darker,  and  I  made  up 
my  mind  he  would  be  pretty  cool  taking  chances ;  so 
I  liked  him  first-rate.  I  guessed  I  had  better  go; 
but  I  did  n't  exactly  get  a  chance  to  start  to  talking 
to  him  again. 

There  was  a  wide  spread  of  water  ahead  where 
you  could  n't  tell  whether  it  was  ten  feet  deep  or 
two  inches,  and  the  pilot  was  bringing  her  along 
cautious,  studying  her  out  ahead  and  ringing  the 
bell  in  the  engine-room.  Then  it  would  be  quiet 
and  he  would  feel  his  way  wherever  he  seen  a  patch 
of  water  that  frowned  or  smiled  or  showed  a  riffle 
or  looked  sluggish.  You  have  to  know  the  Missouri 
by  the  expression  of  her  face  a  good  deal  of  the 


14  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

time— you  can't  tell  how  she  has  changed  since  you 
seen  her  last.  You  can't  see  your  own  finger  in 
a  glassful  of  her;  and  that  is  the  way  she  is.  So 
you  've  got  to  guess  on  snags  and  sand  bars.  But 
he  guessed  it  out  all  right  and  got  across  to  the 
easy  water  nearer  to  where  the  channel  follows  the 
bluffs;  then  he  put  her  full  steam  ahead  and 
whistled  a  little  to  himself  and  just  held  her  to  it. 

Then  Valdes  laid  back  again  with  his  hands  in 
his  pockets  and  just  watched  the  scenery.  Every 
body  can't  sit  up  there;  they  have  to  be  important- 
looking  passengers  like  him ;  and  it  's  a  great  place 
to  sit  and  smoke  and  watch  the  scenery  winding 
past  all  day  on  both  sides.  It  's  all  panes  of  glass 
on  the  sides  and  there  is  lots  of  room  on  the  seat ; 
it  is  sort  of  like  a  greenhouse,  except  that  the  green 
stuff  is  outside  and  you  're  inside. 

Valdes  was  always  interested  in  the  high  rocks; 
anyways  I  noticed  that  whenever  the  bluffs  would 
peter  out  on  one  side  and  start  up  on  the  other, 
he  'd  turn  his  head  and  keep  looking  over  that  way. 
I  made  up  my  mind  I  would  go  along  with  him ; 
but  just  when  I  was  going  to  tell  him  about  it  he 
got  up  and  gave  me  a  look  like  we  was  acquainted 
and  went  down  into  the  cabin  again. 

But  I  had  decided  to  go;  so  I  watched  for  a 
chance  to  tell  him  so.  And  after  a  while,  when  he 
came  out  and  took  a  chair  on  the  upper  guards— 
which  our  old  mountain  boat  did  n't  have  any— 
I  went  down. 

"Guess  I  '11  go  on  up  to  Biggs'  Landing  along 
with  you,"  I  says.  "It  's  important  for  me  to  get 
back  to  that  boat  as  soon  as  possible." 


SAM  APOLOGIZES  TO  THE  PUBLIC        15 

"All  right,  my  boy;  I  '11  see  that  you  get  on  the 
Speed,"  he  says. 

Then  we  got  to  talking  about  things— specially 
about  bore-holes.  I  never  come  across  anybody  that 
knew  the  explanation  of  how  they  got  up  there ;  so 
I  guessed  I  would  try  him.  Well,  he  said  that 
Geology  done  it ;  and  he  knew  something  about  that 
on  accounts  of  him  mining  so  much.  But  he 
could  n't  say  exactly  how  the  bore-holes  got  up 
there.  I  seen  he  did  n't  know  neither.  So  I  said  I 
guessed  the  only  way  out  of  it  was  that  God  made 
them.  Anyways  it  would  look  like  he  done  it,  be 
cause  they  are  round;  and  he  makes  everything 
round.  Look  at  the  earth. 

Well,  he  said  he  guessed  that  was  as  good  an  ex 
planation  as  any ;  and  from  that  we  got  to  talking 
right  along.  I  could  n  't  see  what  a  high-toned  man 
like  him  was  going  up  to  that  jumping-off  place 
for— and  by  rights  it  was  n't  none  of  my  lookout—  ; 
but  from  my  asking  him  questions  he  got  more 
friendly  and  interested  in  telling  me  things;  and 
that  way  he  let  out  what  he  was  going  up  there  for. 
I  found  out  the  whole  business. 

A  good  many  years  ago,  when  he  was  making  a 
trip  up  the  river  to  find  out  what  there  was  in  that 
part  of  the  country,  he  got  off  and  stopped  a  while 
at  Madison  City.  And  while  he  was  there  he  come 
across  a  young  lady  which  was  the  daughter  of  old 
Colonel  Barry.  He  was  n 't  looking  for  her ;  he  was 
looking  for  a  mine ;  but  he  decided  to  get  married 
to  her  and  settle  down.  So  they  took  a  big  trip  all 
over;  and  then  he  brought  her  back  to  live  in  her 
own  country. 


16  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

He  had  n  't  found  nothing  to  mine ;  but  when  he 
looked  at  the  rocks  he  seen  it  was  a  good  place  for 
grapes.  He  knew  all  about  wine.  You  see,  when 
there  's  rock  right  under  the  soil  that  way  it  stores 
up  the  sunshine  on  summer  days  and  keeps  getting 
warmer  and  warmer  and  holds  a  lot  of  it.  Then 
when  night  comes,  or  a  long  chilly  spell  when  there 
is  n't  any  sun,  the  rock  keeps  letting  out  its  own 
heat  and  warming  up  the  roots  just  about  so— same 
as  a  flat-iron  which  you  have  got  in  bed  to  keep 
your  feet  warm.  That  is  what  grapes  likes.  You 
have  got  to  keep  vines  good-natured  that  way ;  and 
afterwards  the  sunshine  and  stuff  comes  out  good 
and  strong  in  the  wine.  Well,  Valdes  was  n't  look 
ing  for  vineyards  neither ;  but  after  he  come  across 
her  he  seen  he  had  such  a  pile  of  money  that  the 
best  thing  was  to  settle  down ;  he  was  satisfied. 

When  they  come  back  from  traveling  they  did  n 't 
stop  at  Madison  City;  they  kept  right  on  up  the 
river  to  the  bluffs  where  Valdes  had  picked  out  a 
place  for  the  vineyard.  While  his  vines  was  grow 
ing  up  he  blasted  a  fine  big  wine-cellar  right  down 
into  the  solid  rock  and  put  a  stone  house  over  it. 
It  was  a  first-class  one.  That  house  could  have 
stood  in  line  with  any  row  of  stone  fronts  in  St. 
Louis  and  looked  like  the  head  of  the  class ;  but  out 
there  it  was  the  only  house  in  sight  and  everybody 
around  them  was  their  help.  He  fixed  it  up  like 
a  city  house  inside,  too;  and  Griswold— which  was 
now  our  mate  on  the  Speed— came  to  be  their  over 
seer.  He  bossed  things  around  and  was  first  mate 
of  the  vineyard. 


SAM  APOLOGIZES  TO  THE  PUBLIC        17 

I  guess  Valdes  and  her  thought  they  was  going 

to  live  with  each  other  in  the  middle  of  that  vine- 


ff  Things  did  come  along  pretty  good  for  a  while  " 


yard  right  along.     Things  did  come  along  pretty 
good  for  a  while.    They  had  a  little  girl,  too;  and 


18  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

about  the  time  that  she  was  learning  to  play  some 
on  the  piano  and  everything  was  getting  to  be  what 
they  looked  forward  to,  the  vines  got  blighted — 
whatever  that  is.  They  all  stopped  having  grapes 
and  died.  So  there  they  were  living  in  the  middle 
of  it  with  everything  dead  around  them  and  no 
thing  on  the  vines  but  last  year's  leaves. 

It  was  n't  any  fun,  I  bet,  when  that  happened. 
You  can't  plant  no  vineyard  seed  in  the  spring  and 
get  your  crops  in  the  fall.  It  would  have  to  be  all 
started  over  again ;  and  it  did  n  't  look  like  a  very 
sure  thing  to  start  over  again.  The  worst  of  it  was 
that  Valdes  had  put  a  lot  of  his  money  into  that 
place  and  he  always  spent  pretty  free  on  his  family. 
It  come  natural  to  him  to  be  rich,  and  he  did  n't 
have  much  use  for  being  poor.  But  there  was  the 
house  sitting  on  its  big  wine-cellar  in  the  rock  and 
putting  on  as  much  style  as  ever  and  nothing  to  go 
with  it. 

When  things  got  that  far  Valdes  took  what 
money  he  had  left  and  went  down  the  Mississippi 
where  the  big  games  were  going;  and  Griswold 
went  along.  He  thought  the  best  thing  to  do  was 
to  take  a  last  chance  on  pulling  out  of  the  hole 
before  he  was  all  in.  He  won  a  while  and  things 
looked  like  they  was  going  to  pick  up  and  start 
themselves  over  again.  Then  he  lost  till  he  was 
broke.  But  a  good  thing  about  it  was  that  Gris 
wold  won;  he  won  two  thousand  of  what  Valdes 
lost  after  his  luck  changed.  That  was  how  Gris 
wold  had  money  to  lend  to  Valdes  on  a  mortgage. 

But  after  Valdes  got  that  money  he  stopped 


SAM  APOLOGIZES  TO  THE  PUBLIC  19 
gambling  right  there.  He  used  to  do  it  when  he 
had  plenty  and  it  did  n't  make  much  difference; 
but  now  he  seen  he  could  n't  afford  to  take  them 
kind  of  chances ;  things  was  different  from  what 
they  used  to  be  and  this  was  his  last  stake.  So  he 
guessed  he  would  strike  out  again  for  South  Amer 
ica.  So  he  told  his  wife  about  it  and  he  said  he 
knew  he  could  rough  it  down  there  and  make  money 
again,  like  he  done  it  before.  It  takes  money  to 
make  money  and  this  was  his  last  chance ;  and  they 
decided  that  if  he  did  n't  prize  off  a  fortune  before 
his  capital  got  too  short  they  would  be  poor  for 
keeps.  His  wife  would  n't  'a'  let  him  go  just  on 
her  own  account ;  but  now  she  had  the  little  girl  to 
think  about.  And  Valdes  did  n't  like  to  go  and 
leave  them,  neither ;  but  he  said  things  would  more 
than  even  themselves  up  when  he  got  back.  She 
wanted  money  on  account  of  her  daughter,  and  he 
wanted  it  for  both  of  them ;  so  he  said  good-by  and 
went.  And  he  said  he  would  more  than  make  up 
for  it  when  he  got  back. 

So  here  he  was  back  again.  No  wonder  I  smelt 
money.  He  seemed  to  have  his  mind  all  made  up 
to  settle  down  with  his  wife  and  little  girl  again 
and  have  things  fine  like  they  intended  to  do  in  the 
first  place.  He  did  n't  talk  much  to  the  other 
people  on  the  Muscoutah;  but  he  did  n't  mind  me. 
And  while  he  was  getting  nearer  and  nearer  to  the 
place  he  seemed  to  like  to  tell  me  about  it. 

"I  am  glad  I  come  across  you,"  I  says.  "It  is 
important  for  me  to  get  back  as  soon  as  possible; 
and  half  a  day  is  a  good  deal." 


20  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

"  So  1 "  he  says.    ' '  Something  special  ? ' ' 
"Yes,"  I  says.    "Accounts  of  my  dog.    I  never 

left  him  alone  before ;  and  them  other  people  don 't 

care  for  him. ' ' 


CHAPTER  II 


THE  UPS  AND  DOWNS  OF  CLANCY  THE  TOSSER 

HEN  Valdes  asked  me  what 
kind  of  a  dog  he  was, 
which  I  could  n't  tell 
him,  except  he  was  span 
iel  on  the  outside,  but 
would  fight— but  the  main 
thing  about  him  is  what 
he  knows.  So  I  ex 
plained  that  to  him  and 
all  the  tricks  he  could 
do.  He  got  pretty  inter 
ested. 

How  did  you  come  to  get  such  a  smart  dog?" 
he  says. 

Well,  I  thinks  to  myself,  I  better  tell  him  the 
whole  story.  When  anybody  tells  you  any  of  their 
business  it  don't  seem  polite  to  sit  and  listen  and 
not  offer  to  tell  none  of  yours.  "He  has  been  tell 
ing  me  how  he  come  across  his  wife ;  so  I  will  tell 
him  how  I  come  across  Rags,"  I  thinks.  It  did  n't 
seem  no  more  than  fair.  So  I  done  it.  After  I  got 
started  I  seen  he  was  interested ;  so  I  told  the  whole 
business. 

The  way  I  come  across  Rags  was  this : 

21 


22  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

One  morning,  when  the  Speed  got  into  St.  Louis, 
I  done  my  chores  up  quick  and  went  for  a  walk 
along  the  levee.  Down  under  the  approach  to  the 


"  <  The  way  I  came  across  Rags/  I  says, 
*  was  this  '  " 


bridge  I  seen  a  fellow  throwing  red-hot  rivets  up 
into  the  air ;  and  there  was  a  fellow  up  above  hold 
ing  the  tin  bucket  to  catch  them.  The  fellow  that 
was  doing  the  pitching  would  take  one  of  them  hot 
bolts  in  a  pair  of  tongs  and  give  it  a  swing  between 
his  legs  just  so;  and  it  would  go  up  like  a  sky 
rocket  and  plunk  into  the  bucket.  He  could  do  it 
every  time.  And  if  he  had  n't  done  it  right  the 
rivets  would  a-come  down  into  the  river.  So  I 
sat  down  and  hoped  maybe  he  would  miss  the 
bucket.  Each  one  would  go  up  and  seem  to  stop 


UPS  AND  DOWNS  OF  CLANCY  THE  TOSSER    23 

a  second  at  the  top  and  then  dive  into  the  bucket 
like  a  bird  into  its  nest.  But  I  kept  on  wishing  and 
trying  to  make  him  miss. 

After  a  while  I  thinks  to  myself,  "Maybe  this  is 
a  better  trade  than  pilot."  You  see  I  had  to 
flunkey  around  a  good  deal  on  the  Speed  and  carry 
out  hominy  and  hog  to  the  niggers  at  meal-times; 
and  that  ain't  rightly  a  pilot's  business.  But  the 
captain  and  the  day  pilot  would  tell  me  to  go 
ahead  and  do  such  things  and  keep  on  waiting  till 
I  'd  get  a  little  more  sense ;  and  then  they  'd  start 
me  to  learning  the  river  for  sure  and  nothing  else. 
But  I  knew  a  whole  lot  more  about  the  crossings 
than  they  thought  I  did ;  and  I  was  getting  already 
so  that  I  held  the  wheel  some.  So  you  see  I  was 
pretty  near  started  to  be  a  pilot,  and  I  says  to 
myself,  I  'd  hate  to  keep  on  and  get  the  river  all 
learned  and  then  come  across  something  like  this 
and  find  out  I  had  made  a  mistake.  So  I  sat  down 
and  watched  and  thought  it  over.  It  looked  like  a 
pretty  good  thing  to  do. 

After  a  while  there  was  some  kind  of  a  hitch  in 
things  up  above;  and  that  give  the  tosser  time  to 
reach  quick  into  his  pocket  for  a  chew  of  tobacco 
and  snap  the  sweat  off  of  his  forehead  into  the  river 
and  get  ready  for  a  new  start.  Things  was  de 
layed  a  little  longer;  so  then  he  put  his  thumb  into 
his  belt  with  the  tongs  at  his  hip  and  looked  around 
him  for  a  change.  Pretty  soon  he  seen  me  and  he 
took  me  in  with  his  eye  a  couple  of  seconds. 

"Do  you  go  in?"  he  says. 

' '  Pretty  much, ' '  I  says. 


24  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

"What  's  the  score?"  he  says. 

" Three  to  one— favor  of  Pittsburgh,"  I  says. 

Then  he  snapped  off  some  more  sweat  and  wiped 
his  face  with  his  finder. 


The  Catcher 

They  keep  it  warm  in  this  man 's  town, ' '  he  says 
"You  bet,  "I  says. 

"Well,  I  wish  they  'd  turn  it  off  at  night,"  he 
says. 

"  So  do  I, "  I  says.  ' c  But  they  can 't.  This  town 
is  built  all  on  limestone  rock.  In  the  day  the  heat 
shines  down;  and  at  night  it  shines  up." 


UPS  AND  DOWNS  OF  CLANCY  THE  TOSSER    25 

"Just  what  I  was  thinking,"  he  says.  "It  's  a 
pretty  fair  town,  though— all  but  the  going  in." 

"These  cobbled  levees  slope  out  slow  to  so-deep," 
I  says.  "And  that  ain't  no  good." 

"It  's  like  wading  out  to  be  baptized,"  he  says. 
* '  It  always  makes  me  feel  solemn. ' ' 

"Why  don't  you  go  off  the  elevator  platform," 
I  says.  "It  's  right  down  deep  into  catfish  water. ' ' 

"Good  diving ?"  he  says.  "And  a  high  place  to 
go  off  of?" 

"Yes,  "I  says. 

But  before  we  could  say  any  more  there  was  a 
signal  up  above  and  he  had  to  start  right  in  again. 
And  he  kept  them  going  up  as  regular  as  shooting 
off  Roman  candles.  I  stayed  around  there  mostly 
that  morning. 

When  noon  came  he  threw  a  hot  rivet  back  onto 
the  furnace  and  pulled  his  coat  out  from  under  his 
dog  and  says,  "Come  on,  Sam."  Well,  I  was  sur 
prised  to  hear  him  call  me  that  right  off ;  he  had  n't 
ever  heard  my  name.  But  afterwards  I  found  out 
how  it  was.  That  was  just  the  name  that  he  called 
all  his  different  friends  wherever  he  went.  No 
matter  who  he  took  up  with  in  any  town  he  would 
call  them  that  and  it  would  be  like  knowing  the 
same  old  Sam.  He  said  it  was  a  good  name  to  be 
called  by,  and  he  named  everybody  that— after 
Sam  Patch  that  jumped  the  Passaic  Falls.  If  his 
dog  had  n't  a-got  used  to  Eags  first  he  would  a- 
called  him  that,  too— and  he  said  that  from  Rags 
to  Patch  would  n't  be  such  a  big  change  at  that. 
Well,  it  would  n't;  except  for  a  dog.  Rags  did  n't 


"  *  Good  diving  ? '  he  says 


M 


UPS  AND  DOWNS  OF  CLANCY  THE  TOSSER     27 

seem  to  be  much  good  except  to  lay  on  his  coat. 
And  his  coat  was  n't  much  use  except  for  Rags  to 
lay  on;  between  times  Clancy  would  just  carry  it 
on  his  arm.  He  did  n't  like  much  clothes. 

We  swam  all  that  noon  except  the  time  that 
Clancy  took  to  eat  his  dinner  out  of  a  newspaper 
which  he  spread  out  so  that  he  could  read  the  base 
ball  news.  He  got  it  all  read  up  before  he  was 
through  with  the  meat;  so  while  he  was  chewing 
it  we  sat  and  talked  and  he  told  me  all  about  the 
catcher.  The  fellow  that  held  the  bucket  was  a 
nephew  of  the  foreman's  wife.  He  was  a  big  lazy 
fellow  and  he  was  a  sleeper.  If  Clancy  happened 
to  throw  a  rivet  a  couple  of  inches  to  the  northwest 
once  in  a  while  that  fellow  could  n't  come  to  in 
time  to  catch  it.  Then  it  would  go  down  into  the 
river  and  Clancy  would  be  blamed  for  it.  Clancy 
said  he  had  more  peace  in  him  than  a  cow.  He  said 
his  brains  was  only  milk  that  had  n't  come  to 
nothing ;  he  said  just  what  kind  of  a  fellow  he  was. 

You  see  that  fellow  was  n't  much  good  for  any 
kind  of  work  where  he  would  have  to  wake  up  and 
take  notice.  And  I  guess  his  folks— which  was 
pretty  rich— knew  it.  So  the  family  stood  him  up 
there  with  a  bucket  in  his  hands ;  and  he  'd  hold  it 
till  he  heard  a  rivet  plunk  in.  Then  he  'd  reach  it 
over  and  hand  it  to  the  man  that  takes  it  out  and 
hammers  a  head  on  it.  He  would  n  't  a-been  no  good 
on  a  nine;  I  bet  he  could  n't  play  one-old-cat. 
But  he  got  as  much  wages  as  Clancy  did.  Maybe 
three  or  four  times  a  day,  when  Clancy  did  n 't  put 
them  in  just  nice  and  straight  for  him,  they  would 


28  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

come  down ;  and  then  the  boss  would  try  to  lay  the 
blame  somewhere  on  Clancy.  And  that  would 
make  Clancy  mad.  He  said  the  fellow  was  n't  a 
catcher  at  all  and  was  n't  cut  out  for  one.  He  was 
only  a  nephew. 

"I  've  seen  fellows  that  got  their  money  that  way 
before,"  I  says. 

"Sure  enough,"  he  says.  "This  ain't  the  only 
business  where  a  man  just  stands  and  holds  the 
bucket." 

Right  then  Clancy  had  to  stop  and  tend  to  Rags. 
Rags  was  swimming  around  at  the  bottom  of  the 
ladder  to  the  platform,  where  we  had  forgot  him; 
and  by  rights  we  should  have  pulled  him  up  onto 
the  platform  and  let  him  dive  with  us  again.  So 
now  he  was  starting  to  growl  and  jaw  to  himself 
because  we  did  n't  do  it.  Clancy  pulled  him  up 
and  then  he  had  to  go  to  work.  And  I  had  to  go 
back  to  the  Speed. 

Well,  that  afternoon  when  I  had  my  work  done 
I  thinks  to  myself,  ' '  I  guess  I  will  go  down  and  see 
the  tosser  again."  And  when  I  got  down  there, 
him  and  the  boss  was  right  in  the  middle  of  having 
it  out.  He  talked  to  him  as  bad  as  if  he  was  an 
umpire. 

"Don't  come  beefing  around  me,"  Clancy  says. 
* '  That  fellow  up  there  that  has  the  bucket  hanging 
on  him  is  in  a  trance,  it  's  a  wonder  he  would  n't 
come  out  of  it.  He  could  n't  hold  a  nest  straight 
enough  for  a  hen  to  lay  an  egg  in  it.  Don't  be 
trying  to  put  a  saddle  on  me  now.  Because  I  won't 
stand  for  none  of  your  gaff." 


UPS  AND  DOWNS  OF  CLANCY  THE  TOSSER    29 

But  the  boss  kept  laying  it  on  Clancy  and  trying 
to  get  the  best  of  him  for  talking  back.  Then  Rags 
began  to  understand  what  was  doing  and  he  sat  up 
on  the  coat  and  started  to  growl  on  Clancy's  side. 

"I  'm  giving  it  to  you  straight,"  says  Clancy, 
making  a  motion  with  his  fist.  "If  you  want  that 
sleeper  to  catch  for  anybody  you  '11  have  to  get 
him  a  tub.  And  he  needs  a  call-boy  to  wake  him  up 
and  tell  him  the  rivet  is  coming.  I  can  put  them  up 
as  straight  as  anybody ;  but  I  ain  't  no  William  Tell, 
I  '11  tell  you  that." 

The  boss  he  talked  back  some  more  and  then 
Clancy  threw  down  his  tongs  and  started  to  give 
it  to  him  right.  And  the  only  way  the  boss  could 
get  the  best  of  him  was  to  give  him  his  time. 


He  got  it  all  read  up  before  he  got  through  with  the  meat"" 


30  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

'  *  Come  on,  Rags ;  we  're  going  to  quit, ' '  he  says. 
Rags  jumped  up  and  ran  around  and  wagged  his 
tail  like  he  was  glad  of  it.  So  then  Clancy  began 
to  smile,  kind  of  sarcastic,  and  whistle  a  tune  to 
himself.  I  got  up  and  guessed  I  would  go  away 
with  him,  but  he  was  n't  in  any  hurry.  He  took 
lots  of  time  to  put  his  coat  on  his  arm ;  and  he 
stopped  to  talk  to  me  where  the  boss  could  hear  it. 

"I  don't  mind  putting  up  with  a  foreman  that 
knows  his  place,"  he  says.  "But  this  fellow  takes 
himself  serious.  He  is  used  to  the  kind  that  lives 
in  a  row  of  forty  flesh-colored  houses  with  pale 
blue  steps— that  's  the  kind  that  he  is  used  to." 

"What  kind  is  that?"  I  says. 

"Oh,  then  you -don't  know.  You  are  from  Mis 
souri,"  he  says,  kind  of  giving  the  boss  a  look. 
"They  are  imported— like  sardines." 

But  he  did  n't  go  on  and  explain  no  more. 

"What  are  you  going  to  do  now,  Clancy?"  I 
says.  "Are  you  going  to  get  a  job  somewheres 
around  here?" 

"Not  at  juggling,"  he  says.  "Skill  is  no  good 
unless  you  have  got  an  audience.  The  boss 
would  n't  let  on  you  knew  the  business." 

Then  we  started  away  and  he  told  me  private  what 
he  was  going  to  do.  There  was  a  stand-pipe  job 
at  the  agency,  and  he  was  going  to  strike  for  that. 
He  was  looking  for  most  anything  that  took  a  dare 
— that  was  his  line.  And  then  I  found  out  how  he 
come  to  be  working  on  the  bridge.  When  he  first 
come  along  they  needed  men  to  .work  down  in  the 
caissons.  That  was  where  they  pumped  the  air 


UPS  AND  DOWNS  OF  CLANCY  THE  TOSSER    31 

down  in  tight  with  you ;  and  you  had  to  know  how 
to  hold  your  breath  and  keep  your  insides  just  so 
when  you  was  going  down  so  that  the  blood 
would  n't  come  out  of  your  ears.  But  when  you 
had  got  down  under  the  river  you  did  n't  mind  it 
if  you  did  n't  care.  So  Clancy  took  it.  After 
wards  they  needed  some  tossing  done  for  a  while; 
and  he  found  he  could  do  it  right  off,  on  accounts 
of  beeing  a  good  baseball  pitcher.  He  did  n't  have 
to  learn  that  trade  at  all;  he  just  found  he  could 
do  it.  That  is  how  it  come. 

"If  I  don't  get  the  stand-pipe  job,"  he  says, 
"I  will  have  to  strike  out.  But  if  you  are  going 
in  to-night  I  will  meet  you  on  the  platform. ' '  And 
then  he  went  away. 

Well,  that  afternoon  when  I  had  some  time  I 
went  down  to  the  bridge  to  see  how  the  boss  could 
get  along  without  Clancy.  They  had  another  man  but 
he  was  n  't  much  good  at  it.  And  while  I  was  sitting 
there,  along  towards  the  middle  of  the  afternoon, 
who  comes  a-walking  down  the  levee  but  Clancy. 

He  leaned  up  against  a  corner  of  the  foundations 
where  he  was  sure  the  boss  would  see  him ;  and  he 
watched  the  fellow  tossing.  The  boss  stole  a  look 
at  Clancy  once  in  a  while,  but  kept  on  pretending 
that  there  was  n't  nothing  doing  and  that  the  new 
fellow  was  all  right.  And  after  a  while,  when 
Clancy  seen  he  had  the  boss  real  bothered,  he  took 
off  his  hat  humble-like  and  went  and  asked  if  they 
did  n't  need  a  man.  He  was  awful  polite  and 
humble  about  it.  The  boss  looked  him  over  sur 
prised.  He  did  n 't  know  what  to  make  of  it. 


32  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

"Good  Lord,"  he  says,  "Don't  you  know  when 
you  're  fired?" 

"Yes— from  tossing,"  Clancy  says.  "But  a  fel 
low  was  telling  me  you  wanted  to  hire  a  man  for 
diving.  I  'm  pretty  good  at  that. ' ' 

"Diving !    What  would  I  want  a  diver  for  1 " 

"To  bring  up  the  rivets  that  the  new  guy  puts 
into  the  river.  I  could  save  the  firm  enough  to 
support  a  couple  of  more  catchers.  What  you  need 
is  a  left-fielder  down  on  the  bottom  of  the  river. ' ' 

Just  then  there  was  a  sizz  where  another  one 
come  down  red-hot  into  the  water.  Clancy  made 
himself  blush  and  look  ashamed  about  it;  he  said 
the  rivets  seemed  to  be  hissing  the  bum  perform 
ance.  Well,  that  got  the  boss  good  and  mad.  He 
would  a-jumped  Clancy,  I  guess,  but  he  dassent. 
Clancy  could  do  anything  with  himself.  The  boss 
told  Clancy  to  get  out  of  there  mighty  quick.  But 
Clancy  would  n't.  He  said  this  was  a  free  country 
and  he  come  down  there  especial  to  lean  up  against 
the  cool  stone  and  take  a  rest  for  hisself.  So  he 
stood  there  and  looked  and  looked  till  the  boss 
could  n't  think  of  anything  but  him  looking.  I 
ought  to  a-knowed  Clancy  was  a  josher  then ;  he 
could  look  all  kinds  of  meanings.  He  did  n't  have 
to  say  the  different  things  at  all;  he  would  just 
look  them.  And  there  ain  't  no  law  against  looking. 
He  looked  awful  sarcastic.  And  whenever  there 
was  a  hiss  in  the  river  he  would  put  his  hand  to 
his  face  like  he  had  to  blush.  He  kept  that  boss 
most  crazy.  And  after  he  was  satisfied  he  went 
away  again. 


UPS  AND  DOWNS  OF  CLANCY  THE  TOSSER     33 

That  night  me  and  him  went  to  the  elevator  plat 
form  and  had  a  long  swim.  When  we  were  tired 
diving  we  sat  on  a  soap  box  a  couple  of  hours  and 
did  n't  go  in  except  for  the  wash  of  a  steamboat. 
Rags  would  sit  at  the  edge  and  whenever  the  waves 
started  to  wallop  in  the  piling  he  would  bark  and 
all  three  of  us  would  go  in  together.  It  was  an 
awful  hot  night ;  so  we  sat  in  our  wet  skins  and 
talked  things  over— just  about  how  he  got  to  be 
what  he  was  and  how  much  money  he  had  made 
and  how  much  he  was  going  to  send  the  next  time 
to  his  mother. 

It  was  nice  to  sit  there  cool  and  see  the  rows  of 
lights  in  the  long  cabins  of  the  steamboats,  and 
them  all  twinkling  in  the  water.  That  way  we 
got  to  talking  about  scenery;  and  then  I  told  him 
about  bore-holes.  He  had  n't  seen  none,  but  he 
had  heard  about  them.  But  he  could  n't  figure 
out  how  they  got  there.  I  seen  he  did  n't  know 
anything  about  them;  I  guess  nobody  does.  So 
we  give  it  up. 

Clancy  had  n't  got  the  job,  so  he  was  going 
away.  He  was  going  on  a  work  train,  which  he 
would  have  to  pretend  he  was  a  trackman;  that 
way  he  would  get  almost  to  where  he  was  going  to. 
So  when  he  was  all  dressed  with  'his  coat  on  his 
arm  I  told  him  I  was  sorry  he  was  going,  and  I  said 
I  liked  his  style.  And  he  said  he  liked  my  style. 
And  then  he  give  me  his  dog.  But  not  for  keeps. 
You  see  after  Rags  got  deaf  with  the  muddy  water 
Clancy  did  n't  like  to  take  him  around  railroad 
yards  much;  so  he  did  n't  want  him  along  on  the 


If    0 


UPS  AND  DOWNS  OF  CLANCY  THE  TOSSER    35 

work  train.  He  could  n't  hear  a  switch-engine 
coming ;  and  some  day  it  would  be  all  off  with  him 
like  it  was  with  the  other  dog.  So  when  he  come 
across  me  he  decided  he  better  give  Rags  to  some 
body  that  was  reliable  and  could  keep  him  traveling 
like  he  was  used  to.  He  said  a  steamboat  would  just 
suit  a  water-dog ;  so  he  let  me  take  him.  But  I  had 
a  hard  time  holding  Rags  back.  He  howled  and 
cried  and  took  on  terrible.  He  has  n't  got  clean 
over  it  yet.  Sometimes  when  we  are  going  up  the 
street  Rags  will  make  a  home-run  for  somebody 
away  off.  And  when  he  comes  back  you  can  see  he 
is  disappointed  as  if  he  "had  been  struck  out;  he 
goes  slower.  He  has  got  so  now  that  he  is  satisfied 
all  right  and  looks  up  to  me ;  but  sometimes  I  think 
he  ain't  really  got  through  hoping  that  some  day 
he  will  see  Clancy  again.  Well,  maybe  he  will ;  be 
cause  if  Clancy  ever  wants  him  back  I  have  got  to 
let  him  go.  Clancy  would  n't  really  give  up  own 
ing  him.  That  is  how  I  come  to  get  him. 


CHAPTER  III 


SAM  STOPS  TO  VINDICATE  THE  MISSOURI ;  BUT  GETS 
STARTED  AGAIN 

ALDES  sat  and  listened 
to  me  with  his  feet  up 
on  the  guard-rail;  and 
he  showed  he  was  inter 
ested  all  the  way  through. 
I  liked  him  first-rate.  So 
now  he  had  told  me  why 
he  was  in  a  hurry  to  get 
up  the  river ;  and  I  had 
told  him  why  I  was  in  a 
hurry  to  get  up  the  river. 
That  kind  of  evened 
n't  find  no  more  to  talk 
about  right  away;  so  we  just  sat  and  looked  at 
things.  Then  I  went  up  into  the  pilot-house ;  and 
I  did  n't  get  a  chance  to  talk  to  him  till  next 
morning. 

We  was  getting  clean  up  into  the  bluffs  now.  If 
there  is  anything  I  like  it  is  a  nice  day  coining 
through  the  Gasconades;  you  can  look  away  up  at 
the  rocks  and  think  most  anything— steeples  and 
pieces  of  churches  and  castles  and  shapes  of  things. 

30 


things 


VINDICATING  THE  MISSOURI  37 

Sometimes  it  is  just  a  wall  all  along— two  hundred 
feet  high  maybe,  and  as  flat  and  straight-up  as  you 
could  make  it. 

And  there  are  more  shapes  than  one  man  could 
ever  think  up.  I  bet  if  anybody  was  a  bank  robber 
and  had  maybe  two  thousand  dollars  it  would  be  a 
good  thing  for  him  to  go  up  into  the  bluffs.  He 
could  let  himself  down  from  the  top  of  a  place  and 
get  into  a  bore-hole;  and  I  would  like  to  see  any 
body  catch  him  then. 

It  took  an  awful  time  to  make  that  scenery ;  it  is 
different  from  the  other  kind.  I  have  seen  the  kind 
that  just  looks  as  if  the  boilers  inside  the  earth 
blew  up  and  the  busted  pieces  come  down  any  way 
it  happened.  But  you  can  see  this  scenery  did  n't 
happen  all  of  a  sudden ;  it  was  all  made  by  water — 
and  it  is  the  best  kind.  That  other  kind  of  scenery 
just  makes  you  think  what  a  big  explosion  it  was, 
and  right  away  you  can  see  how  it  happened.  But 
this  water  scenery  is  all  work ;  and  nobody  can  ever 
think  of  so  much  work.  That  is  the  thing  about  it. 
When  you  try  to  think  of  so  much  work  you  can't 
think  of  anything  but  time.  You  think  back  as  far 
as  you  can ;  and  then  you  think  back  another  piece. 
It  took  an  awful  long  time  to  do  it.  Then  you  keep 
on  a-thinking  back  till  it  don't  GO  no  further. 
And,  pshaw!— that  ain't  a  drop  in  the  bucket. 
Sometimes  it  looks  as  if  it  was  all  thought  up.  And 
when  you  come  across  one  of  them  bore-holes  away 
up  in  a  wall  it  looks  like  that  scenery  was  made 
part  by  machinery.  But  nobody  knows  how  it  hap 
pened. 


38  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

I  guess  that  when  you  come  right  down  to  it  the 
Missouri  made  that  scenery  just  to  show  off  what  it 
can  do.  It  is  just  that  kind  of  a  river  when  you 
come  to  know  it.  If  it  did  n't  do  a  few  things 
like  that  everybody  would  think  it  did  n't  have  a 
mind  of  its  own. 

Sometimes  you  would  think  so,  anyways.  Up  in 
the  flat  land  where  it  could  go  straight  ahead  if  it 
wanted  to,  it  lets  itself  be  pushed  all  over;  the 
least  little  thing  will  take  it  half  a  mile  out  of  its 
way.  All  that  's  needed  is  for  the  soil  to  be  a  little 
soft  and  mushy  and  give  in  to  it  and  let  it  think  it 
can  have  its  way,  and  it  can  do  most  anything  with 
the  Missouri.  You  'd  think  it  was  awful  easy-going 
and  could  be  led  anywheres.  But  let  something 
stand  up  and  tell  the  Missouri  it  can't— let  some 
thing  put  up  a  front  and  look  as  if  all  rivers  would 
have  to  go  round— and  the  Missouri  won't  do  no 
such  thing;  it  will  cut  a  gap  through  there  if  it 
takes  for  eternal ;  it  will  cut  a  solid-rock  hill  clean 
to  the  heart  and  put  fancy  work  all  over,  just  for 
extra.  Up  where  there  's  nothing  opposing  it 
you  'd  think  that  river  did  n  't  have  no  mind  of  its 
own— that  easy  soil  can  do  anything  it  wants  with 
it;  but  when  the  channel  gets  up  against  a  hard 
proposition  it  would  n't  leave  that  place  for  any 
thing.  Why,  that  river  will  go  clean  out  of  its  way 
to  fight  a  bluff,  first  one  side  and  then  the  other; 
and  that  is  why  the  boat  has  got  to  keep  crossing 
over  from  one  range  to  the  other  all  the  time. 
Specially  when  you  are  coming  down  and  following 
the  channel.  Lots  of  people  is  that  way.  Well,  I 


VINDICATING  THE  MISSOURI  39 

would  rather  tackle  a  hard  thing  myself.    What  is 
the  use  of  trying  an  easy  one? 

I  seen  Valdes  was  watching  things  and  thinking 
them  over;  so  I  asked  him  if  he  did  n't  have  any 
idea  at  all  of  how  them  bore-holes  could  a-come. 
Well,  he  said  he  had  a  sort  of  an  idea.  He  said  that 
some  time  a  long  while  ago  there  could  a-been  a 
rock  standing  in  the  current  close  to  the  wall— just 
like  Ninety  Mile  Rock  is  now.  And  the  rock  kept 
shoving  the  current  over  against  the  wall  and 
whirling  the  water  round  and  round  with  all  the 
sand  and  mud  in  it  till  it  bored  out  a  deep  round 
hole.  He  said  the  Missouri  could  do  pretty  fancy 
jobs  that  way  because  there  was  so  much  grit  in  it. 

"That  could  be,"  I  says.  "But  there  AIN'T 
any  rocks  in  front  of  them  bore-holes." 

"They  wore  away,  too,"  he  says.  "They  wore 
themselves  out  doing  the  job." 

"That  is  all  right,  too,"  I  says.  "I  seen  a  kind 
of  a  bore-hole  half  done  that  same  way.  But  it 
was  down  at  the  edge  of  the  water.  And  these  that 
I  am  talking  about  are  a  hundred  feet  above  your 
head.  How  about  that?  The  river  could  n't 
a -done  it  without  the  water  was  up  that  high. 
And  it  could  n't  go  up  that  high  without  banks; 
and  it  has  n't  got  them  that  high  all  along— only 
in  places.  And  if  it  ever  DID  go  up  that  high  with 
out  banks  it  would  spread  out  all  over  the  United 
States  and— why, there  would  n't  be  no  sense  in  it." 

So  he  started  in  to  explain  that.  He  said  prob 
ably  they  was  made  down  at  the  water,  but  that  the 
earth  got  to  shrinking  (from  the  water,  I  guess), 


VINDICATING  THE  MISSOURI  41 

and  that  way  it  kind  of  puckered  up  and  left  the 
holes  up  in  the  air.  All  I  could  make  out  was  that 
he  claimed  they  was  made  down  below  and  then 
H'ISTED.  He  twisted  things  every  way  to  get 
the  job  done. 

Well,  that  was  a  little  too  much  for  me  to  swal 
low.  When  I  was  first  on  the  boat  and  was  a 
greeny  and  would  run  all  over  to  get  the  key  to  the 
range  I  would  a-believed  that.  But  I  ain't  that 
kind  of  a  softy  now.  I  don't  believe  in  Geology. 
As  Stubbs  says,  "enough  is  enough,  but  too  much 
is  a  little  too  much."  (Stubbs  is  a  circus  clown; 
but  I  will  tell  you  about  him  afterwards.)  But  I 
did  n't  say  nothing. 

After  that  we  did  n't  try  to  talk  about  anything 
else.  So  I  went  on  up  in  the  pilot-house. 

We  blew  for  Biggs'  along  toward  lamplight  and 
made  a  slick  landing— most  as  good  as  the  Speed 
could  do  herself.  Just  one  engine-bell  to  shut  her 
down  and  then  she  stopped  breathing  and  slipped 
along  and  died  out  against  the  bank— tied  to  a 
stump.  No  fuss  at  all.  By  that  time  I  had  come 
down  from  the  pilot-house  and  run  up  forward  to 
the  stage.  There  was  only  a  few  barrels  of  salt 
for  that  place;  and  by  the  time  Valdes  had  come 
with  his  valise  the  niggers  had  rolled  them  off  and 
whirled  them  into  place  and  the  mate  had  cussed 
them  all  aboard  again ;  and  we  had  no  more  than 
stepped  off  the  end  of  the  stage  when  it  went  up 
and  swung  forward  on  the  tackle  and  the  wheel 
beat  a  few  times  and  walked  her  off  in  a  jiffy.  And 
there  we  was. 


42  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

At  this  place  a  range  of  bluffs  had  just  petered 
out  and  turned  into  a  grassy  slope  that  faced  the 
river  like  a  steep  front  yard.  But  it  was  only  the 
edge  of  the  land.  An  old  rutty  wagon-road  ran  up 
from  the  landing-place  and  went  out  of  sight  over 
the  edge  where  there  was  a  dingy-looking  freight- 
shed  that  was  n't  used  much.  A  black  and  white 
cow— which  you  could  see  plain  because  she  was 
darker  and  lighter  than  the  dusk— was  laying 
down  on  the  slope  where  it  must  a-made  her  awful 
tired  to  graze  all  day;  and  there  was  a  portable 
sawmill  laying  as  if  it  had  been  shoved  aside  over 
the  edge.  There  was  n't  anything  else  on  the  slope 
but  an  old  cabin;  you  could  see  it  was  put  there 
where  somebody  did  n't  care;  and  the  cow  was  let 
munch  around  on  the  edge  of  things.  The  cabin 
had  a  chicken  coop  all  made  of  long  thin  sticks  like 
willow  from  a  tow-head ;  and  there  was  willow  wove 
in  and  out  to  hold  it  together.  The  tall  tops  of  the 
willow  kept  moving  and  swaying  this  way  and  that 
whenever  there  was  a  little  breeze,  and  I  bet  it 
would  puzzle  any  chicken  to  fly  over  that.  Any 
ways  they  would  n't  try  it,  because  the  coop  kept 
motioning  them  back. 

I  never  thought  Valdes  was  going  up  to  that  old 
place;  but  he  went  right  to  the  door,  which  was 
standing  open,  and  put  his  hand  inside  the  dark 
and  knocked.     Some  one  said,  "Who  dah?"  and 
scratched  a  match ;  and  then  a  nigger  girl  lit  a 
lamp  and  held  it  up  to  see. 
' '  Who  dah  ? "  she  says. 
' '  Valdes, ' '  he  says. 


VINDICATING  THE  MISSOURI  43 


"  «  Who  dah?'  she  says" 

When  he  said  that  she  was  so  took  back  she 
pretty  near  dropped  the  lamp.  But  she  only  jig 
gled  the  chimney  and  got  it  down  quick  on  the 
table  again ;  and  then  she  stood  with  her  hands  up 
and  the  white  insides  of  them  showing  in  the  light 
and  looked  at  Valdes  as  if  he  was  a  ghost. 


44  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

"Fo'  de  Lawd,"  she  says— and  she  stared  at  him 
like  you  would  think  she  had  seen  him  dead  and 
buried. 

Valdes  set  the  heavy  valise  inside  and  went  in; 
and  when  she  seen  him  walking  around  natural 
that  way  she  let  down  her  hands  and  stood  with 
them  on  her  hips. 

"Are  you— a-a-a-Lucy  Jane?"  he  says. 

' '  Yessah, ' '  she  says.    "  I  is  her. ' ' 

"Well,  you  have  certainly  grown  up,"  he  says. 

"Yessah,"  she  says. 

"And  where  is  Aunt  Liddy?"  he  says,  sitting 
down  on  the  edge  of  a  chair. 

"Ma  went  back  in  de  kentry  wif  some  aigs.  She 
jes'  done  gone." 

"Well,  I  just  stopped  in  for  a  minute,"  he  says. 
"How  is  Mis'  Effie  and  Manuelo?" 

"Mis'  Effie!  An'  Manuelo !  Hain't  YOU  got 
dem?" 

"Have  n't  been  up  to  the  house  yet — I  have  n't 
seen  them.  I  am  just  on  my  way." 

She  stood  and  stared  at  him  again. 

"I  'spec'  you  is  gwine  be  mighty  s 'prised,"  she 
says. 

"What  is  it?  Is  n't  she  up  at  the  house?"  he 
says. 

"Up  to  de  house!  Deed  she  ain't.  Dat  house 
been  em'ty  five  yeahs.  NOBODY  know  whar  she 


"NOBODY!"  he  says.  Valdes  eyes  widened 
and  set  themselves  open.  And  he  pushed  the  chair 
back  so  hard  it  gritted  its  legs  on  the  floor.  "Is  n't 


VINDICATING  THE  MISSOURI  45 

she  down  at  Madison  City,  then— with  the  Colonel 
—or  somewhere?" 

"De  Colonel  he  is  dead.    He  dead  fo'  yeahs  now. 
An'  when  he  is  dyin'  he  give  in  f '  om  his  fool  no 
tions  an'  want  his  Effie  back.  But  she  come  too  late. " 
"And    does    n't    Griswold    know?      He    knows 
where  she  is." 

"Deed  he  jes'  de  one  what  DON'T  know." 
"How  was  it*?  How  did  she  come  to  leave?" 
"She  jes'  go.  She  keep  on  waitin'  fo'  you  till 
de  money  is  mos'  gone.  Den  she  keep  scrinchin' 
'long.  Bimeby  when  she  don't  get  no  mo'  letters 
she  think  maybe  you  is  killed.  So  one  time  she 
take  Manuelo  an'  jes'  get  off  de  boat  at  St.  Louis 
an'  go  'way.  We  think  fo'  a  while  maybe  she  is 
gone  down  to  de  diamon'  kentry  to  find  you.  But 
when  she  been  gone  two  yeahs  we  heahs  dat  she 
come  back  to  Madison  City  an'  jes'  stay  fo'  to  look 
round.  An' she  find  you  ain't  come  back  yet.  Den 
she  say  you  is  sho'  'nuff  dead.  An'  de  Colonel  is 
dead.  An'  she  cry  an'  go  way— on  de  train.  An' 
she  ain't  gwine  come  back." 

Valdes  sat  looking  at  her  stiff  and  straight;  he 
did  n't  make  a  move,  except  his  fingers  twitched 
some  like  the  man  in  the  waxworks  when  he  is  be 
ing  wound  up.  He  got  up  and  sat  down  again  in 
just  about  that  way  too ;  and  he  asked  her  the  same 
thing  three  or  four  times  like  it  was  the  only  ques 
tion  he  knew.  And  she  just  stuck  to  it  that  Mis' 
Effie  was  gone  for  good.  And  then  he  got  up  and 
walked  over  to  her  and  come  to  a  stop  like  the  ma 
chinery  had  run  down. 


46  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

"How  do  you  KNOW  that  she  is  n't  coming 
backf" 

"Kase  she  ain't  got  nobody.  An'  she  tell  Rastus 
so.  He  see  her  when  she  was  back  to  Madison 
City ;  an '  he  ast  her  ain  't  she  gwine  up  to  de  Land- 
in'  to  see  Aunt  Liddy.  An'  she  say  she  would  like 
to,  kase  Ma  has  been  her  mammy  f'om  de  first. 
But  she  say  dey  is  reasons  why  she  don't  want  to 
go  on  dat  steamboat.  An'  she  say  you  is  dead  an' 
she  don't  want  to  see  de  house  nor  de  vineyard  nor 
nuffin'  no  mo'.  She  go  'way  agin.  Nobody  know 
whar." 

Valdes  started  to  walking  up  and  down ;  you 
could  see  he  was  feeling  bad.  And  when  the  girl 
seen  what  she  had  started  up  she  would  n't  go  no 
farther.  She  just  stuck  to  it  that  Mis'  Effie  was 
gone  for  keeps. 

There  was  an  iron  bird  screwed  onto  the  corner 
of  the  table,  and  it  was  holding  a  long  piece  of 
calico  in  its  bill.  I  knew  already  how  it  worked 
because  when  I  squeezed  its  tail  it  opened  its  bill 
and  dropped  the  piece  of  calico  on  the  floor.  Then 
when  I  put  the  calico  back  in  its  bill  and  let  go  of 
its  tail  it  would  hold  it  again.  It  worked  fine. 

Valdes  seen  that  and  come  to  a  stop. 

"You  have  her  sewing  bird,"  he  says. 

"Yessah.  We  lets  it  hold  de  sewin'.  Ma  say  she 
rathah  jes'  pin  de  sewin'  to  her  knee— dat  is  her 
way.  But  she  let  de  bird  sit  befo'  her  an'  do  it; 
kase  she  say  it  is  Mis'  Effie 's  bird." 

Valdes  unscrewed  it  from  the  table  and  turned 
it  over  in  his  hand  every  which  way;  and  then  he 


VINDICATING  THE  MISSOURI  47 

just  stood  looking  at  it.  He  held  it  in  his  hand 
and  looked  at  it  like  it  was  a  dead  bird. 

He  screwed  it  back  on  the  table  again ;  and  then 
he  turned  and  went  slow  over  to  the  door  and  stood 
looking  out  into  the  night  with  his  back  to  us.  The 
sky  was  clear  and  all  lit  up  with  stars.  Sometimes 
I  could  see  his  shoulder  rise  and  fall  like  he  was 
taking  a  long  deep  breath. 

All  of  a  sudden  he  turned  and  took  down  a  tin 
lantern  with  a  candle  in  it  that  was  hanging  by  the 
door.  He  did  n't  light  it,  but  just  stood  for  a  spell 
thinking ;  and  then  he  picked  up  the  valise.  When 
I  seen  him  taking  that  up  I  knew  he  was  going 
away.  So  I  got  up  and  went  along. 

I  took  a-hold  of  the  valise  and  offered  to  carry  it 
some;  but  he  said  I  better  just  carry  the  lantern. 
So  I  said  that  suited  me  all  right  because  the  lan 
tern  wrould  be  lighter ;  and  right  away  it  made  me 
think  of  Clancy  because  that  was  a  joke.  But  he 
never  said  nothing. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  DEAD  VINEYARD 

went  along  the  slope  and 
then  down  where  the  old 
empty  log  cabin  is  in  the 
hollow  at  the  bank  of  the 
river  and  then  up  where 
the  bluffs  begin  to  rise; 
and  we  kept  on  till  we 
were  away  on  top  of  the 
flat  country  that  goes  back 
from  the  edge  of  the  wall 
of  rock.  We  walked  along 
past  the  shrubby  pine  that 
grew  up  there ;  and  sometimes  we  came  so  close 
to  the  edge  that  you  could  see  down.  And  if  you 
leaned  over  you  could  look  straight  down  the  face 
of  it  at  the  river  below.  And  you  could  see  the 
river  shining  away  in  the  distance  and  the  woods 
away  across ;  it  was  a  fine  night.  The  air  was  all 
full  of  moonlight.  The  water  down  there  and  the 
woods  on  the  other  side  were  all  touched  up  with  it ; 
and  it  was  so  bright  that  you  could  make  out  your 
shadow  on  the  ground. 

When  we  came  to  a  bend  we  made  a  cut-off 
through  a  piece  of  dark  woods;  and  after  a  while 

II 


THE  DEAD  VINEYARD  49 

we  came  right  out  to  the  edge  of  it  again.  Down  in 
the  current  I  seen  a  sawyer.  The  old  black  trunk 
of  a  tree  had  got  a-hold  with  its  roots  on  bottom 
and  its  business  end  pointing  up-stream — some  of 
them  do  that  way — and  I  could  see  it  wagging  up 
and  down  on  the  current  and  working  its  jaw  like 
it  was  hungry  for  a  steamboat.  It  was  fixed  just 
right  to  spear  a  hole  and  rip  out  the  bottom  when 
she  was  coming  swift  on  the  down  trip ;  and  I  says 
to  myself,  "That  old  sawyer  knows  its  business;  I 
guess  it  has  tried  it  before."  And  after  a  while 
we  came  to  where  we  saw  the  dead  vineyard  spread 
out  all  dark  and  tangled  in  the  moonlight. 

It  was  nothing  but  black  bare  vines,  twisted  and 
crooked  and  bent ;  and  some  clinging  to  poles  that 
were  half  falling  over  with  them ;  and  some  on  the 
ground,  like  snakes ;  and  all  of  them  mixed  up  with 
their  own  shadows  till  it  looked  twice  as  tangled 
and  dismal  as  it  was.  And  right  in  the  middle  of  it 
was  a  gray  stone  house  looking  out  with  its  windows 
as  dark  as  caves.  The  house  looked  like  it  had 
stopped  being  good  for  anything  but  to  hold  itself 
full  of  darkness  and  look  so  that  the  place  would  be 
more  solemn  and  lonesome. 

I  sort  of  hung  back  at  first;  and  Yaldes  went 
ahead  and  led  the  way  through  the  aisles  of  the 
vineyard.  After  we  were  going  along  right  in  it, 
that  way,  it  seemed  to  be  moving  itself —the  vines 
all  changing  shapes  as  you  passed,  and  twisting 
and  twining  like  they  were  trying  to  get  the  best 
of  each  other.  All  them  bent  crooked  shapes  and 
knotty  twisted  arms  and  staggering  poles  would 


50  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

keep  mixing  up  with  each  other  when  you  moved 
ahead;  and  then  they  would  all  stop  and  look 
deader  than  anything  when  you  stood  still.  And 
when  I  would  start  up  again  it  seemed  to  me  as  if 
all  of  them  were  bending  and  struggling  this  way 
and  that  and  sliding  their  shapes  into  one  another 
like  snakes  a-rassling;  it  made  me  feel  squirmy 
myself.  But  I  guess  it  was  partly  on  accounts  of 
me  having  Valdes'  troubles  in  my  head;  and  so  I 
could  see  the  worst  kind  of  things  all  over.  I  kept 
my  eyes  about  me.  When  you  looked  at  the 
drunken  poles  holding  up  the  dead  vines  you 
could  n't  help  thinking  how  they  used  to  be  all 
green  and  growing  and  covered  with  big  leaves  and 
bunches  of  grapes ;  and  it  made  a  person  feel  queer 
—anyways  it  did  me.  It  was  just  the  skeleton  of 
a  vineyard.  And  the  way  it  was  all  black  and  bent 
made  it  look  like  it  died  hard. 

We  wound  in  and  out  till  we  were  most  to  the 
middle;  and  then  Valdes  stopped  and  looked 
around  him.  So  I  stopped— and  the  whole  busi 
ness  stopped.  I  had  been  thinking  it  was  nothing 
but  lonesomeness  in  that  place;  the  house  looked 
full  of  it  and  the  place  did  n't  care  for  anything. 
It  seemed  that  there  was  n't  a  thing  to  listen  to 
except  the  dry  sounds  we  made  brushing  against 
the  vines.  And  after  we  come  to  a  dead  stop  it 
seemed  like  I  could  'most  stand  there  and  listen  to 
the  scenery.  Sometimes  it  would  be  just  a  dead 
twig  falling  to  the  ground  and  making  you  wonder 
what  had  picked  it— and  sometimes  it  would  be  a 
bird  stirring  in  the  vines— and  sometimes  a  cricket 


The  Dead  Vineyard 


51 


52  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

that  jumped  and  bumped  his  head  on  a  dry  leaf, 
I  guess— the  more  I  listened  the  more  I  could  hear. 
It  ain't  ever  quiet  anywheres,  I  guess— even  when 
folks  is  away.  There  is  always  something  chang 
ing  around  and  getting  ready  if  you  only  knew  it. 
Sometimes  a  little  breeze  would  come  that  you 
could  hardly  feel ;  but  you  could  hear  it  rustly  all 
over.  And  between  times  the  other  things  would 
keep  a-doing. 

It  was  a  fine  night— outside  of  that  place— and 
I  thinks  to  myself  it  would  be  just  the  kind  of  a 
night  to  be  coming  down-river  on  the  engine-house, 
or  maybe  laying  up  at  a  landing,  watching  the 
niggers  trot  back  and  forth  in  the  torch-light.  I 
wished  it  was  me  that  was  doing  it.  It  was  n't 
much  fun  in  this  place,  and  I  wished  I  had  n't 
come.  Even  the  moonlight  on  the  ground  did  n't 
seem  to  like  it ;  it  looked  troubled.  But  that  was  all 
foolishness;  and  I  guessed  I  had  better  quit  stop 
ping  and  starting  and  fooling  with  the  looks  of  it ; 
I  would  go  ahead  as  if  it  was  n't  nothing.  And 
just  then  Valdes  drew  his  hand  across  his  fore 
head  and  started  up  again;  so  I  came  on  close  be 
hind.  Then  everything  set  itself  a-going  and 
started  to  do  it  over  again. 

"When  we  got  to  the  house,  Valdes  struck  a  match 
on  the  stone  steps  and  held  it  inside  his  hand  (I 
could  see  the  blood  in  his  fingers)  ;  and  when  he  got 
it  to  going  good  he  lit  the  lantern  and  opened  the 
door.  I  heard  a  screech  that  made  me  jump  and 
start  back;  but  it  was  only  the  rusty  hinges. 
There  was  something  about  things  that  made  me 


THE  DEAD  VINEYARD  53 

feel  that  way.  And  after  we  went  inside  it  was 
the  same ;  wherever  we  walked  the  house  seemed  to 
creak  and  complain. 

Valdes  would  stop  in  the  middle  of  every  room 
and  hold  the  lantern  high  up  and  then  turn  and 
look  all  around.  All  the  doors  were  open  or  un 
locked  ;  and  he  looked  into  every  corner  and  into 
the  closets.  In  the  kitchen  and  pantry  he  looked 
into  the  drawers  but  he  did  n't  find  anything  ex 
cept  an  old  brassy  spoon.  Then  he  lifted  a  door 
in  the  floor  and  there  came  up  a  different  kind  of 
air,  cool  and  sweet.  I  would  a-knowed  right  away 
what  kind  of  a  cellar  it  Avas.  Its  breath  smelled  of 
wine. 

He  went  on  ahead  and  lit  the  way  down  the 
steps;  but  they  did  n't  squeak  any  because  they 
were  cut  right  in  the  solid  rock.  There  was  n't 
any  more  of  them  little  sounds  down  there.  That 
place  was  TOO  quiet.  There  was  n't  any  mortar 
ing  or  joining  together  or  any  kind  of  building 
about  that  place ;  it  was  a  room  on  the  inside  of  a 
big  stone.  He  stopped  in  the  middle  of  the  cellar 
and  circled  the  lantern  around  the  same ;  and  then 
I  saw  barrels,  big  and  little,  all  along  the  sides. 
Then  he  picked  up  a  wooden  mallet  and  went  ali 
along  and  thumped  each  one  on  its  head ;  and  they 
gave  out  all  kinds  of  hollow  sounds— each  one 
seemed  to  be  telling  in  a  different  voice  that  it  was 
empty.  And  there  was  n't  anything  else  there  but 
some  big  timbers  with  dark  stains  on  them,  and  a 
wooden  screw  that  showed  they  were  pieces  of  a 
wine-press.  I  started  to  ask  something  about  them ; 


54  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

but  it  sounded  like  I  was  talking  into  all  the  barrels 
—I  could  n't  hear  anything  but  my  own  voice  in 
my  ears.  It  was  too  quiet  a  place  to  talk  in ;  so  I 
shut  up.  Anyways  I  never  met  my  own  voice  all 
alone  like  that  before. 

When  he  had  thumped  all  the  barrels  he  held  the 
lantern  up  and  looked  around  at  the  place  again ; 
and  then  he  gave  the  valise  a  shove  with  his  foot 
over  towards  the  pieces  of  wine-press  and  sat  down 
on  them  with  the  lantern  beside  him.  So  I  sat 
down  too  and  wished  he  would  make  up  his  mind 
to  go. 

He  took  a  long,  deep  breath  and  let  it  out;  and 
then  he  took  another.  I  thought  at  first  he  was 
taking  a  good,  big  smell  of  the  wine-cellar.  So  I 
took  a  sniff  myself,  for  it  smelled  so  good  you  could 
pretty  near  taste  the  wine  that  had  been  there  years 
ago.  And  next  time  he  just  filled  his  lungs  plum' 
full  and  blowed  it  out.  It  seemed  he  could  n't  get 
his  breath  down  where  he  wanted  it  to  touch  bot 
tom.  Then  he  beat  that  all  hollow,  and  took  it  in  so 
long  and  deep  and  let  out  so  much  that  he  sort  of 
scared  me.  And  when  I  was  going  to  say  some 
thing,  he  heaved  another  the  likes  that  I  never 
heard  before — it  was  worse  than  any  yawning. 

"What  is  the  matter?"  I  says.  "Is  anything 
the  matter  ? ' '  But  he  only  shook  his  head,  which  I 
could  n  't  tell  whether  it  was  No  or  being  sorry,  and 
done  it  again.  It  seemed  like  he  could  n't  stop  it. 

Well,  that  Valdes  took  in  his  breath  as  slow  and 
deep  as  the  Speed— and  she  has  about  the  deepest 
pipes  of  any  boat  I  ever  heard.  Her  old  cylinders 


THE  DEAD  VINEYARD  55 

are  long  like  gas-pipes,  and  she  throws  up  the  ex 
haust  so  steady  that  you  would  think  she  was  going 
to  blow  all  the  steam  out  of  the  boilers  at  a  breath. 
But  blamed  if  I  ever  heard  a  man  breathe  and  sigh 
like  that  before.  I  commenced  to  think  that  maybe 
something  was  going  to  happen  to  him ;  and  he  got 
me  to  feeling  so  bad  that  my  heart  went  way  down. 
So  I  asked  him  agin  if  something  was  ailing  him ; 
and  he  did  n't  say.  But  after  a  while  he  shook  his 
head  a  few  times  and  drew  his  lips  tight  and  got 
the  best  of  it ;  and  then  he  breathed  shorter,  down 
in  his  stomach. 

All  of  a  sudden  he  opened  the  valise  and  began 
scrabbling  around  in  it.  And  that  was  when  I 
started  to  hold  my  breath.  Besides  his  things  there 
was  bunches  of  money  in  packages — stubby  dollar 
bills  of  a  kind  that  I  had  n't  seen  before,  and  money 
with  the  eagle  on  it. 

He  rummaged  around  through  his  neckties  and 
collars  and  money,  pushing  it  to  one  side  and  then 
the  other— and  when  some  of  it  fell  back  and  got 
in  his  way  he  jammed  it  all  together  out  of  his  road 
like  it  was  n't  worth  a  cent.  There  was  a  shammy- 
skin  bag  that  had  something  in  it,  too;  and  he 
poked  that  around  out  of  his  way.  At  last  he  come 
to  a  package  with  some  note-books  and  white 
papers;  and  right  away  he  stopped  and  went 
through  that.  What  he  Avanted  was  a  photograph ; 
and  when  he  come  across  it,  he  dropped  the  white 
package  back  with  the  rest  and  shoved  it  all  down 
so  the  valise  would  go  shut.  And  then  he  sat  look 
ing  at  the  picture. 


56  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

I  hunched  over  and  took  a  look  at  it,  too.  And 
right  away  I  says  to  myself,  ''That  's  her."  I  just 
guessed  it.  She  was  pretty  good  looking  and  was 
smiling  at  him  right  out  of  the  picture.  There  was 


"  He  sat  looking  at  the  picture  " 

a  little  girl's  face  close  beside  hers;  and  the  little 
girl  looked  some  like  Valdes— specially  her  dark 
hair.  When  he  looked  at  them  a  while  it  come  over 
him  to  breathe  hard  again;  and  when  he  started 
doing  that  I  edged  away  some. 


THE  DEAD  VINEYARD  57 

Looking  at  him  in  the  lantern-light,  that  way,  I 
could  see  he  was  n't  as  strong  as  you  would  take 
him  to  be  at  first.  You  could  see  that  he  used  to  be 
pretty  strong,  and  he  was  dark  complected,  which 
looked  some  like  tan;  but  when  you  come  right 
down  to  it  you  could  see  that  he  did  n  't  have  all  his 
strength  left.  But  you  would  n't  a-noticed  it 
when  he  was  all  slicked  up  and  carrying  himself 
cool  like  a  gambler.  He  was  kind  of  hollow  under 
the  eyes ;  and  when  you  looked  at  him  deep  you 
could  see  he  had  been  through  more  than  he  could 
ever  do  over  again.  I  made  up  my  mind  he  was 
just  feeling  bad  and  would  get  done ;  so  I  sat  and 
waited. 

He  kind  of  moaned  once  in  a  while ;  and  when  he 
found  his  voice  that  way  he  started  to  say  things. 
He  got  to  blaming  himself  for  one  thing  and  blam 
ing  himself  for  another ;  and  he  took  on  about  what 
a  blind  fool  he  was  not  to  appreciate  what  he  had ; 
and  how  he  had  done  wrong  to  his  family ;  and  how 
the  money  had  cost  him  more  than  it  was  worth. 
He  just  sat  and  complained  because  he  did  n't  have 
nothing  but  money. 

Once  he  kind  of  excused  himself  for  being  down 
sick  and  away  off  where  he  could  n't  help  it;  but 
then  he  started  over  again  to  run  himself  down  for 
going  away  in  the  first  place.  And  he  blamed  him 
self  like  everything  for  staying  away  after  he  was 
well  and  did  n't  hear  from  her,  but  just  let  himself 
get  away  off  again  and  go  as  good  as  crazy  because 
the  money  was  coming  his  way.  I  bet  I  could  a- 
bought  that  money  from  him  for  ten  cents. 


58  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

Well,  it  was  pretty  monotonous  sitting  there 
underground  in  that  stony  place  and  hearing  noth 
ing  but  his  voice  sounding  in  it.  It  was  hol 
low  and  mournful  down  there  and  I  got  to  think 
ing  of  everybody  that  was  dead  and  buried.  I 
wished  I  had  let  well  enough  alone,  and  not 
come  along— except  it  was  worth  it  to  look  at  the 
money. 

All  I  come  for  in  the  first  place  was  on  accounts 
of  getting  up  nearer  to  the  bore-hole.  Some  day  I 
wanted  to  look  inside  of  one  and  see  how  deep  in  it 
went  and  what  Nature  done  it  for.  I  thought  I 
would  look  down  over  the  edge  of  the  bluff  and  see 
if  it  felt  too  dangerous  to  go  down  on  a  rope  like 
Clancy  said  he  could. 

And  while  I  was  thinking  of  that,  it  popped  into 
my  head  what  else  Clancy  said. 

"'Say,  "I  says. 

"What  is  it?"  Valdes  says. 

"Say,"  I  says.  "I  knew  a  fellow  that  knew  of 
a  woman  that  lived  in  a  vineyard— I  just  come  to 
think  of  it.  It  was  up  here  in  the  bluffs  some- 
wheres.  And  it  all  died  off.  And  it  was  up  over  a 
bore-hole. ' ' 

"WHO?"  he  says,  all  of  a  sudden.  "Where  is 
she?" 

"I  don't  know,"  I  says. 

"Where  WAS  she?— what  city?" 

' '  I  don 't  know, ' '  I  says. 

"Where  did  she  TELL  it  to  him?  What  town 
did  HE  come  from— the  fellow  that  told  you?" 

"Why,  I  don't  know  them  things,"  I  says. 


THE  DEAD  VINEYARD  59 

"Tell  me,"  he  says,  "where  the  man  IS"— stand 
ing  up  so  excited  that  I  jumped  up  too. 

"I  don't  know  where  he  is,"  I  says.  "He  was 
the  fellow  I  was  telling  you  about— Clancy.  And 
he  was  going  away  somewheres  else.  But  he  ain't 
there  now.  Because  he  goes  all  over. ' ' 

Then  he  started  in  and  fired  a  lot  of  questions  at 
me,  with  his  hand  a-hold  of  my  coat  at  the  shoulder. 
And  he  got  to  shaking  me  as  if  I  was  a  money- 
bank  and  he  could  shake  what  he  wanted  out  of 
my  mouth. 

"Look  a'  here,"  I  says:  "There  ain't  no  use  in 
trying  to  get  it  out  of  me  that  way.  A  fellow  can 't 
remember  anything  except  what  he  used  to 
KNOW." 

He  ought  to  a-knowed  that  without  me  telling 
him.  That  kind  of  brought  him  to  a  stop.  But  he 
stood  looking  at  my  head  as  if  he  thought  there  was 
something  in  it.  And  he  was  going  to  get  it  out. 

He  went  down  into  the  valise  and  took  out  a 
piece  of  gold  money. 

' '  Here  's  a  guinea  for  you, ' '  he  says. 

"What  for?"  I  says. 

"For  telling  me  all  you  can  remember,"  he 
says. 

He  went  down  into  the  valise  and  took  out  a 
money. 

It  was  a  queer  kind  of  foreign  money;  but  I 
guess  it  was  good.  It  was  heavy.  And  when  he 
seen  me  looking  it  over  that  way  he  skinned  off  a 
couple  of  five  dollar  bills.  "Maybe  you  would  pre 
fer  this, ' '  he  says. 


60  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

* '  For  just  talking  ?  Maybe  it  won 't  be  worth  it— 
for  just  talking,"  I  says. 

"That  makes  no  difference.  Tell  me  what  you 
know,"  he  says. 

1 '  All  right, ' '  I  says ;  ' '  here  's  your  guinea  back ; 
I  '11  take  the  eagle  money  every  time.  I  '11  tell  you 
how  it  was. ' ' 

And  then  I  started  in  and  told  him  the  same  as 
I  already  did  on  the  Muscoutah.  And  blame  if  he 
did  n't  want  to  hear  every  word  of  it  over  again. 
It  \vas  just  the  same,  except  I  put  in  about  the 
woman— which  was  all  I  had  forgot,  except  some 
little  stuff.  And  then  I  seen  what  he  thought. 
Just  because  I  had  left  that  out  he  could  n't  trust 
me  on  remembering  at  all.  He  kept  asking  me ; 
and  then  I  up  and  told  him  plain  I  did  n  't  KNOW 
where  she  was.  He  looked  at  my  head  suspicious 
again. 

"Why  did  n't  you  ASK  the  fellow  where  she 
was?"  he  says— and  then  he  began  looking  at  me 
mighty  stern. 

"What  did  I  care  about  the  woman?"  I  says. 
' '  I  did  n 't  know  she  was  anybody.  I  was  n 't  inter 
ested  in  HER.  I  was  talking  about  bore-holes. 
Clancy  said  he  would  n't  be  afraid  to  let  himself 
down  from  any  place;  and  he  did  n't  know  any 
thing  about  them.  But  he  said  a  lady  that  was 
talking  about  rock-scenery  spoke  about  bore-holes; 
and  she  said  there  was  one  near  her  vineyard  that 
died  up  here.  That  's  all  I  know.  And  it  's  a  won 
der  I  ever  remembered  that  part  at  all;  it  's  most 
a  year  ago  and  it  just  now  popped  into  my  mind 


THE  DEAD  VINEYARD  61 

when  I  was  thinking  deep.  And  I  thinks  to  myself, 
'maybe  it  is  the  same  place.'  : 

"It  IS,"  he  says. 

He  did  n  't  say  anything  for  a  little  while ;  and 
he  seemed  to  be  satisfied.  Anyways  he  did  n't  want 
his  money  back.  He  forgot  about  feeling  bad  and 
took  out  a  piece  of  paper  and  the  gold-tipped  pencil 
and  went  right  to  work  asking  questions— about 
what  Clancy  looked  like,  and  such. 

But  he  had  n't  got  far  when  we  seen  the  lantern 
would  n't  hold  out  much  longer;  the  candle  was 
burned  down  to  its  socket  and  the  flame  trying  to 
let  go.  And  before  we  got  to  the  stairs  it  went  out 
and  let  the  place  be  pitch  black ;  it  was  the  darkest 
I  ever  seen.  He  did  n't  have  a  match ;  but  he  knew 
the  place  anyway;  so  I  had  to  take  hold  of  his 
coat-tail— which  I  had  to  try  all  over  him  to  find— 
and  just  went  out  by  feeling.  I  would  n't  want  to 
be  blind. 


CHAPTER  V 

AUNT  LIDDY  HAS  HER  SAY 

KEPT  a  good  hold  of  Valdes' 
coat-tail  till  we  got  up-stairs 
and  through  the  house;  and 
then  we  came  out  to  moon 
light  and  night  seemed  like 
day.  So  then  I  let  go.  I 
followed  him  through  that 
vineyard  again  and  along  the 
high  bluff  and  down  into  the 
lonesome  hollow  without  say 
ing  a  word.  And  I  was 
mighty  glad  to  see  the  lamp 
light  shining  out  of  the  cabin  again. 

When  we  were  coming  up  to  the  door  Aunt  Liddy 
was  sitting  sewing  at  the  piece  of  calico,  but  did  n't 
seem  to  be  doing  much ;  and  while  I  was  watching 
she  let  it  drop  in  her  lap  and  started  to  take  on  and 
mourn.  "Mah  po'  Effie,  Oh,  mah  po'  Effie!"  she 
says;  and  she  kept  on  complaining  like  that— try 
ing  to  sew  at  the  same  time. 

When  Valdes  came  in  she  got  up  and  said  how 
surprised  she  was  at  what  Lucy  Jane  had  told  her ; 
but  she  was  n't  half  as  glad  to  see  him  as  you  would 
a-thought.  And  then  they  both  wanted  to  do  the 


AUNT  LIDDY  HAS  HER  SAY  63 

questioning  and  not  the  answering.  Aunt  Liddy 
told  him  just  the  same  as  Lucy  Jane  had  done. 
And  all  there  was  to  his  story  was  that  he  had 
got  back.  Aunt  Liddy  came  to  a  stop  as  if  she 
did  n't  know  what  to  think  about  it;  and  then 
she  sat  down  again  and  made  out  she  was  terrible 
busy. 

You  see,  she  thought  Yaldes  was  killed  and  that 
was  why  he  could  n't  write;  or  else  he  was  living 
yet  and  Mis'  Effie  had  found  him  somewhere  and 
was  getting  along  all  right.  I  began  to  see  that  all 
she  cared  for  was  her  Effie — which  she  was  her 
black  mammy — and  not  for  him  hisself ;  and  now 
when  she  saw  that  he  had  been  living  all  the  time 
she  stored  it  up  against  him.  I  could  see  she 
was  pretty  disappointed  in  him  that  he  was  n't 
dead.  She  was  a  little  mammy  with  a  thin  face 
and  a  nose  that  was  pretty  straight ;  and  she  could 
look  like  white  folks  when  they  have  their  opin 
ions. 

But  after  a  while  their  questions  and  answers 
began  to  fit  together  and  explain  things  to  each 
other.  I  did  n't  exactly  get  head  and  tail  of  it, 
but  I  began  to  see  how  it  was.  Valdes  had  been 
gone  eight  or  nine  years.  At  first  he  wrote  letters ; 
and  he  let  her  know  of  some  place  where  he  could 
come  to  get  answers.  But  after  a  while  things  took 
him  away  off  where  it  was  wild  and  uncivilized; 
and  then  he  got  sick  and  pretty  near  died  and 
could  n't  get  back  to  the  place  where  letters  come 
for  a  long  time.  And  then  it  was  a  long  time  be 
tween  mails  and  he  could  n't  always  wait  there  for 


64  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

answers ;  and  then  he  would  be  a  long  time  getting 
back  there  again.  But  when  he  was  on  his  feet 
again  he  wrote  and  waited  a  while;  but  he  had  to 
go  away  again.  He  did  n't  hear  from  her  again; 
and  he  did  n't  have  much  opinion  of  the  mails 
down  there  anyways.  All  that  he  could  n  't  help ; 
it  was  a  mix-up.  But  now  he  blamed  himself 
mighty  hard  for  one  thing.  A  couple  of  years  ago, 
when  he  began  to  think  he  had  been  away  long 
enough  and  ought  to  come  back,  he  made  one  more 
try  and  struck  it  rich.  It  had  come  at  last— what 
he  had  pretty  near  killed  himself  for  already — 
and  he  went  as  good  as  crazy  about  it,  thinking 
how  he  would  get  back  at  last  and  have  everything 
fixed  up  like  he  promised.  And  that  was  how  he 
kept  a-going.  He  wrote  again  a  while  before  he 
was  coming  back.  And  here  he  was. 

Things  began  to  explain  themselves  more  and 
more.  And  then  when  Aunt  Liddy  found  about  the 
way  it  was  and  the  kind  of  fevers  he  had,  she  began 
to  pay  more  attention  to  him. 

"Did  you  git  much,  down  in  de  gol'  an'  diamon' 
kentry,  Mistah  Valdes  1 " 

"Yes,  I  did  pretty  fair,  Aunt  Liddy— pretty 
fair.  You  might  say  I  am  rich." 

And  when  she  started  to  think  about  that,  it  just 
turned  Mis'  Effie's  bad  luck  into  worse.  Aunt 
Liddy  did  n't  think  of  anybody  but  her.  And 
when  she  had  took  on  about  it  some  more,  she  put 
on  her  big  round  silver  specs  and  came  over  by  the 
fireplace  and  stood  looking  at  Valdes  straight 
through  the  middle  of  them. 


AUNT  LIDDY  HAS  HER  SAY  65 

' '  Lawdy ! ' '  she  says,  ' '  you  looks  de  same  as  ever. 
Jes'  as  scrumptious  an'  high-toned  as  ever." 

"But  what  I  want  to  know  is  just  how  she  came 
to  go, ' '  he  says. 

"Well,  she  scrinch  along  an'  keep  waitin'  till  she 
could  n't  scrinch  along  no  mo'.  To'ds  de  las'  she 
give  in  dat  maybe  you  is  killed.  Den  she  go  'way. 
But  she  did  n't  tell  me  she  gwine— 'kase  she  know 
I  would  n't  LET  her.  Dat  gal  say  all  de  time  dat 
things  is  gwine  turn  out  good  in  de  en'.  An'  I  say 
I  seen  things  what  DON'T  turn  out  good.  But  she 
keep  sweet  an'  cheerful  an'  go  on  a-hopin'  all  de 
time.  Dat  gal  makin'  things  to  give  me  all  de  time 
she  ain't  got  half  enough  to  eat!  Deedy,  you 
could  n't  MAKE  her  po'— she  jes'  would  n't  BE  it. 
She  'bout  like  you.  An'  she  tell  Manuelo  'bout  de 
fine  dresses  she  gwine  have  when  her  Pa  come  back. 
She  make  de  finest  picture-frame  fo'  me  outen  de 
red  leaves  an'  de  pine  cone  an'  de  dead  grape-vine. 
She  laugh  an'  say  dead  vineya'ds  is  good  fo'  dat 
anyways.  An'  one  time  she  cut  her  finger  mighty 
bad  makin'  de  toy  house  fo'  my  li'l  Ephra'm.  I 
tie  it  up  fo'  her  an'  she  keep  on.  'Kase  she  all 
wrap  up  in  pleasin'  dat  chile.  Jes'  de  same  as  if 
he  was  a  white  boy.  An'  was  n't  Ephra'm  jes' 
proud  of  dat  toy  house!  It  was  all  made  outen 
pastebo'd,  wid  doahs  an'  windows.  An'  de  ya'd 
had  a  fence  round  it  wid  moss  fo'  de  grass.  An'  she 
take  some  lace  paper  outen  her  ol'  candy  boxes  an' 
make  sho'  'nuf  curtains  in  de  windows.  An'  she 
put  glue  on  de  sides  an'  sprinkle  it  wid  salt  till  it 
jes'  twinkle— an'  dey  was  a  red  chimbly  on  de  top. 

5 


66  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

An'  what  beat  Ephra'm  was  de  roof  on  dat  house. 
She  covah  dat  roof  wid  watahmelon  seeds.  An' 
dey  was  put  on  lak  real  shingles. ' ' 

Valdes  sat  by  the  fireplace  and  listened.  But 
Aunt  Liddy  got  away  off  the  track  and  he  had  to 
put  her  on  it  again. 

"But  how  did  she  come  to  go?"  he  says.  "Tell 
me  just  how  that  was. ' ' 

' '  When  she  don 't  heah  from  you  no  mo ',  she  says 
you  gwine  be  back  in  fo'  y'ars.  Come  fo'  y'ars 
an'  she  is -come  to  her  last  cent;  so  I  holp  her 
scrabble  'long.  I  go  back  to  steamboatin',  like  in 
de  old  days.  I  take  my  kitchen  on  the  Speed  an' 
cook  de  same  as  I  used  to.  Long  as  I  was  on  de 
boat  she  could  take  a  trip  to  St.  Louis  an'  live  in 
my  pantry.  'Kase  dat  was  my  pantry  an'  she  was 
my  COMP'NY.  An'  mostly  she  would  have  some 
thing  from  the  house  all  wrap  up  in  a  piece  of 
paper  fo'  to  sell  at  St.  Louis.  She  would  n't  sell  no 
mo '  'n  one  piece  at  a  time ;  'kase  she  don 't  know  how 
soon  you  is  comin'  back.  Dat 'a 'way  I  feed  mah 
Effie  up  good  fo'  a  week  at  a  time.  An'  den  when 
she  git  off  heah  at  de  place  agin  I  make  her  take 
some  things  what  I  cook  up  fo'  her  an'  li'l  Manuelo. 
She  always  say  she  don't  want  'em.  But  I  make 
her  take  'em.  I  tell  her  dey  is  a  PRESENT— den 
she  jes'  can't  holp  takin'  'em.  Dat  way  she  manage 
to  piece  out.  An'  come  a  trip  or  two  I  'vite  her 
fo'  comp'ny  an'  take  her  agin.  An'  dat  all  right 
an'  nache'l;  'kase  ain't  I  her  Mammy  what  brung 
her  up  f'om  de  first?  But  whenebber  we  lands  at 
Madison  City,  Effie  go  an'  hide  in  de  co'ner  of  my 


AUNT  LIDDY  HAS  HER  SAY  67 

pantry,  whar  nobody  kin  see  her.  'Kase  why? 
'Kase  de  Colonel  was  gittin'  old  an'  notiony  an' 
tell  his  business  to  folks.  When  you  lose  yo'  money 
an'  go  'way,  he  say  it  jes'  what  Effie  mought  ex- 
pec'.  An'  he  is  boun'  dat  she  come  back  to  him 
wifout  invitin'— same  as  she  left.  An'  he  expec' 
dat  gal  gwine  do  it.  But  she  woan'  stan'  to  heah 
no  talk  'bout  you.  She  mighty  proud.  He  never 
give  in  till  he  is  mos'  dyin' — an'  den  she  come. 
But  she  is  too  late.  Bimeby,  when  dey  is  done 
foolin'  at  de  co't-house,  she  git  de  few  hund'ed 
dollahs  what  he  left.  Den  she  take  anothah  trip  in 
mah  pantry;  an'  at  St.  Louis  she  kiss  me  good- 
by,  sayin'  she  gwine  to  take  Manuelo  up-town.  I 
'spec '  she  gwine  git  Manuelo  a  new  dress,  'kase  dat 
gal  sproutin'  right  up  outen  her  clothes  when  she 
is  fo'teen.  Dat  how  she  go.  An'  she  did  n'  tell 
me— she  know  I  would  n'  LET  her.  An'  jes'  befo' 
de  boat  lef '  dey  come  a  fine  new  dress  fo'  me— all 
done  in  sto'  paper.  De  boy  what  bring  it  make  me 
ma  'k  in  a  book ;  an '  he  hurry  off  jes '  when  ingine- 
bell  ring.  But  deedy !  I  knows  whar  dat  dress  come 
from." 

"And  she  was  back  again  in  two  years?"  Valdes 
says. 

"Jes'  lookin'  fo'  you.  Den  she  give  up.  An' 
she  go  away. ' ' 

"And  where  do  YOU  think  she  is?"  Valdes  says. 

"Maybe  down  in  dat  Souf '  America.  An'  maybe 
off  in  some  city  whar  she  kain't  move  from.  De 
Lawd  know." 

Valdes  sat  pulling  his  black  moustache  and  look- 


"  <  She  kiss  me  good-bye  '  ' 


AUNT  LIDDY  HAS  HER  SAY  69 

ing  in  the  fire.  Aunt  Liddy  tried  to  make  herself 
believe  she  was  sewing.  But  she  dropped  it  again. 

"Lawdy,  she  git  so  ha'd  up  dat  she  scrape  all  de 
yallah  paint  off  'n  a  ham  cloth  fo'  to  git  de  muslin. 
An '  she  fix  it  all  up  an '  make  Manuelo  a  li  '1  under- 
waist.  But  she  don't  git  down  in  de  mouf  or  mind 
it.  Dat  gal  would  n't  BE  po'— even  when  she 
hain't  got  no  money.  Yo'  kain't  MAKE  dat  gal 
po '.  She  'bout  like  you. ' ' 

All  the  time  she  was  saying  that  I  seen  Valdes 
could  hardly  stay  down  on  his  chair.  All  of  a  sud 
den  he  got  up  and  walked  back  and  forth  with  one 
side  of  his  moustache  in  his  mouth  and  him  chewing 
it  like  he  did  n't  give  a  cent  for  himself.  I  bet 
you  he  thought  it  was  just  about  what  he  had  com 
ing  to  him.  Then  he  spit  it  out  all  straggly  and 
began  pulling  the  other  side  out  of  shape. 

"And  how  about  Griswold?"  he  says.  "Did  n't 
he  ever  let  her  take  any  more  of  that  money? 
Did  n't  he  keep  an  eye  on  her— as  he  said  he 
would?" 

"When  de  five  y'ars  is  up  an'  she  say  you  is 
dead,  he  git  off  'n  de  boat  an'  come  up  often.  He 
say,  sometimes,  maybe  he  jes'  have  to  close  down 
on  de  mo 'gage—  'kase  he  need  de  money  bad.  But 
he  offer  to  let  her  take  some— jes'  private.  Den  he 
come  agin  an '  say  maybe  he  won 't  have  to  shet  down 
de  mo 'gage.  An'  he  offer  to  let  her  take  some  if 
she  need  it.  But  she  won't  take  none.  Dat  way 
he  pester  her  to'ds  de  last.  She  say  she  hope  he 
go  'way  an'  STAY  'way." 

' '  I  guess  Griswold  had  bad  luck, ' '  says  Valdes. 


70  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

"I  don't  know  nuffin'  'bout  dat,"  Aunt  Liddy 
says.  Then  she  sewed  hard  on  the  calico  and  made 
out  she  was  busy. 

"When  will  the  Speed  get  here  on  the  down 
trip  ? "  he  says  to  me. 

"It  depends  on  how  far  up  she  goes,"  I  says. 
"Most  of  her  load  was  farm  machinery  and  salt, 
and  I  guess  she  won't  go  very  far  up.  She  ought 
to  be  back  in  a  couple  of  days,  if  she  don't  get 
stuck  or  have  bad  luck." 

"I  hope  she  does  n't  have  bad  luck,"  he  says. 

' '  I  must  see  Griswold.    He  will  know  where  she  is. ' ' 

When  he   said   that  Aunt   Liddy   dropped   the 

calico  in  her  lap  and  looked  at  him  over  the  top  of 

her  specs. 

"Now  look  a'heah,  Manuel  Valdes,  I  jes'  don't 
like  to  see  you  foolin'  yose'f  dat  'a'  way— jes'  'kase 
he  was  yo'  overseer.  I  say  he  keep  an'  eye  on  her. 
Deedy  yes— he  oversee  her.  He  keep  BOFE  eyes 
on  her."  And  that  time  she  sewed  busier  than 
ever.  "I  tells  you  he  DON'T  know,"  she  says. 

"What  is  it  you  are  not  telling  me?"  he  says, 
standing  up. 

She  dropped  the  calico  and  brushed  it  clean  out 
of  her  lap  and  left  it  hanging  in  the  bird's  bill; 
then  she  straightened  up  stiff. 

"Well,  I  'spec'  it  about  time  you  know— 'kase  it 
all  over  now.  Dat  man  love  her  long  befo'  YOU 
did." 

Valdes  he  stood  with  his  mouth  open  and  one 
hand  up  like  a  pump  that  is  gone  dry. 
"And  what— else?"  he  says. 


AUNT  LIDDY  HAS  HER  SAY  71 

"Hain't  I  been  her  Mammy  f 'om  de  first?"  she 
says.  "Did  n't  I  take  his  letter  up  to  de  convent? 
An'  did  n't  she  laugh  an'  tell  me  bouten  it?  She 
only  smile  an'  show  it  to  me— 'kase  den  she  only 
care  fo'  you.  An'  now  she  HATE  him.  But  dat 
why  he  come  to  be  overseer.  Dat  why  he  work  on 
de  place.  Dat  why  he  'courage  you  to  go  down  de 
Mississippi,  an'  take  de  mo 'gage;  an'  'courage  you 
to  go  'way;  an'  say  he  will  keep  an'  eye  on  de 
place  an'  see  her  through  till  you  gits  de  fo'tune. 
Dat  why  EVER 'THING.  An'  when  it  come  out 
dat  he  still  like  her  she  won 't  TAKE  de  money. ' ' 

When  Aunt  Liddy  got  that  far  she  began  to  sway 
and  holler  like  she  had  got  religion.  "Dat  why 
EVER 'THING.  An'  I  say  he  PISON  de  vines. 
DAT  what  I  say.  'Kase  mah  'Rastus,  what  went 
out  to  de  Blackin'  Hills,  he  say  yo'  kin  squirt  stuff 
into  a  tree  an'  kill  it  jes'  like  a  pusson.  An'  I  say, 
he  PISON  de  vines." 

Valdes'  eyes  set  themselves  open  again  and  he 
began  to  come  to — kind  of  dry  at  first — and  then 
you  ought  to  'a'  heard  him  cussing  under  his 
breath.  He  walked  up  and  down  the  floor  with  it 
hissing  out  of  him ;  he  done  it  like  a  leaky  cylinder 
that  you  know  there  is  lots  more  steam  inside  than 
what  comes  out.  And  then  something  slowed  him 
up  and  brought  him  to  a  stop. 

"Eifie  never  told  ME.  She  never  said  he  wanted 
her  first —  And  me  having  him  for  overseer !" 

"Lawdy — a  woman  ain't  gwine  hate  a  man,  an' 
do  him  hahm,  jes'  'kase  he  used  to  like  her.  She 
ain't  gwine  have  him  lose  his  job  jes'  fo'  DAT. 


AUNT  LIDDY  HAS  HER  SAY  73 

She  married  now— an'  dat  all  in  de  past.  Dat 
what  she  think.  She  never  'spise  him  till  he  ae' 
dat  'a'  way  an'  want  her  AG'IN." 

Valdes  started  up  and  down  and  cussed  all  over 
the  place  again.  It  was  n't  any  windy  steamboat 
cussing,  neither.  On  a  steamboat  you  have  got  to 
talk  loud  and  blow  around  to  keep  the  niggers 
a-going — but  this  was  n't  loud;  it  was  real  inside 
cussing.  He  whispered  things  that  had  edges  on 
them. 

I  wished  I  had  n't  come. 

When  Aunt  Liddy  saw  what  she  had  started  up 
she  kind  of  toned  down.  She  went  on  about  how 
Mis'  Effie  never  did  care  for  Griswold  and  how 
she  always  believed  in  Valdes  to  the  last.  That 
only  made  him  worse  for  a  while;  but  afterwards 
it  shut  him  off  a  little. 

' '  How  do  you  know  that  he  poisoned  the  vines  ? ' ' 
he  says. 

"I  don't  jes'  know  it.  But  when  it  is  all  over, 
an'  Effie  gone,  I  say  to  mahse'f,  'hoccum  things  go 
flip-flop  like  dat?'  An'  'Rastus  he  say  how  yo'  kin 
do  wif  trees.  Den  it  come  to  me  like  a  visium  f 'om 
de  Lawd.  Dat  how  I  know.  I  jes'  FINK  so—  'kase 
I  feels  bad  'bout  mah  Effie.  But  she  trus'es  you 
all  de  time  an'  say  things  gwine  come  out  good  in 
de  en'.  But  I  say  I  seen  things  what  don't  come 
out  good  in  de  en'.  An'  she  tell  Manuelo  how  nice 
it  gwine  be  when  her  Pa  come  back  an'  bring  her 
ever 'thing.  She  jes'  keep  on  hopin'  along.  'Kase 
she  got  Manuelo  to  hope  FOR." 

Valdes  kept  on  slowing  down ;  and  then  he  went 


74  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

and  stood  in  the  door  and  looked  out  at  the  stars 
a  while.  And  then  he  went  out  of  the  door  and  was 
gone  somewheres.  But  I  did  n't  go  along;  I  kept 
sitting  by  the  fireplace  where  I  was. 

I  just  sat  there  and  wished  I  had  come  in  time 
to  get  some  supper;  and  while  I  was  watching  the 
kettle  in  the  fireplace  a  common  old  yellow  cat  came 
in  and  sat  down  next  to  me.  When  I  looked  at  her 
she  stretched  her  mouth  and  went  through  the 
motions  of  saying  "meow";  but  she  did  n't  say  it. 
I  watched  her  and  pretty  soon  she  said  "meow"  as 
plain  as  day  again;  but  that  time  she  did  n't  come 
to  any  sound  either.  You  could  see  her  do  it- 
opening  her  mouth  to  say  "me"  and  stretching  it 
back  at  the  corners  for  "ow"— and  then  sitting  as 
contented  as  if  she  had  done  it ;  but  she  had  n't.  It 
looked  like  she  was  just  sitting  there  telling  it 
secret  to  me.  Well,  I  never  seen  a  cat  that  tried  to 
keep  quiet  before;  and  when  she  done  it  again  I 
turned  around  and  told  Lucy  Jane  that  the  cat 
was  trying  to  say  "meow"  and  could  n't;  and 
maybe  she  had  better  come  and  tend  to  it.  It 
looked  unnatural  and  out  of  place,  and  I  did  n't 
like  it.  Lucy  Jane  said  it  was  n't  nothing,  though 
it  was  kind  of  aggravating.  The  cat  could  n  't  help 
it,  because  one  time  she  lost  her  voice.  And  she 
had  to  meow  anyways. 

"Ain't  she  got  ANY  voice?"  I  says. 

' '  Dat  cat  los '  her  voice, ' '  Aunt  Liddy  says.  * c  She 
los'  it  de  time  I  drown  her.  An'  one  time,  when 
she  been  dead  so  long  I  mos'  fo'git  about  her,  she 
come  back  at  lamplight  an'  stan'  in  de  do'  an'  make 


AUNT  LIDDY  HAS  HER  SAY  75 

faces  at  me.  Jes'  like  dat.  I  could  n't  b'lieve  it— 
afteh  me  puttin'  her  in  de  flouah-sack  wif  a  stone 
an '  seein '  her  go  down  de  ribber  an '  away  off.  I  put 
on  my  specs  an'  it  look  like  I  was  losin'  mah  hear- 
in';  an'  den  I  say  'Hem'  to  mahse'f— jes'  to  see 
if  I  could  hear  it.  But  dat  cat  did  n't  drown  at  all. 
She  went  down  an'  got  out  someways  in  de  water; 
an'  she  los'  her  voice.  I  nebber  was  so  s 'prised  in 
mah  life.  Not  till  DIS  BERRY  NIGHT." 

So  I  sat  and  watched  for  her  to  do  it  some  more. 
That  kind  of  interested  me,  because  I  never  seen  a 
cat  that  kept  quiet  before— specially  at  night. 
After  a  while  I  got  sleepy  and  they  told  me  to  go 
to  bed.  There  was  a  calico  curtain  stretched  across 
one  end  of  the  room  and  it  was  an  extra  bedroom ; 
so  I  went  in  there.  The  bed  was  just  boards  built 
against  the  wall  with  a  husk  tick.  But  it  was  all 
right  when  you  laid  still. 

"Well,"  I  thinks  to  myself,  "the  old  nigger 
mammy  is  right.  I  always  did  think  there  was 
something  more  to  Griswold  than  just  driving  nig 
gers  on  a  steamboat.  He  did  n't  have  to  holler  as 
much  as  most  mates;  and  they  knew  enough  to 
move  along  quick  when  he  said  it,  too.  And  then  I 
got  to  worrying  about  Rags  again.  Suppose  any 
thing  happened  to  him  while  I  was  away?  What 
would  Clancy  think  of  that  ?  He  would  think  I  was 
a  GREAT  one,  he  would." 

There  was  an  open  place  in  the  curtain  where  the 
pieces  did  n't  draw  together;  and  after  a  while, 
when  I  was  laying  there  looking  out,  Valdes  come 
to  the  kitchen  door. 


76  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

"She  always  trusted  me— did  n't  she,  Aunt 
Liddy?" 

"Lawdy,  ain't  dat  jes'  what  I  'se  TELLIN' 
yo '  ?  She  say  you  has  done  de  bes '  yo '  kin. ' ' 

Then  he  went  away  again.  He  come  and  asked  it 
and  went  right  away  like  a  messenger  boy  that  has 
got  the  answer.  After  that  I  began  to  forget  things 
and  went  sound  asleep. 


CHAPTER  VI 


A  SOUND  IN   THE  DISTANCE— WHAT   CAME  OF  IT 

N  the  morning  when  I  came 
from  behind  the  curtain, 
Valdes  was  sitting  at  the 
corner  of  the  fireplace. 
It  looked  like  he  had  been 
sitting  there  all  night. 
Aunt  Liddy  was  busy 
getting  breakfast  and 
Lucy  Jane  was  out  on  the 
slope  milking  the  cow. 
Nobody  said  nothing,  ex 
cept  Aunt  Liddy  sometimes  talked  to  herself;  and 
once  she  told  herself  how  Mis'  Effie  just  trusted 
Valdes  and  never  did  care  much  for  Griswold. 
When  she  said  that  I  seen  a  hard  smile  come  over 
his  mouth ;  but  the  rest  of  his  face  was  as  stern  as 
ever.  That  smile  was  kind  of  unnatural — like  the 
voiceless  cat  when  she  meowed. 

That  cat  came  and  sit  right  beside  me  at  break 
fast  and  looked  up  and  made  faces  for  something 
to  eat.  She  interested  me  a  lot. 

"Has  n't  she  got  ANY  voice  at  all,  Aunt 
Liddy?"  I  says. 

"She  hain't  got  none  at  all/'  she  says. 

77 


78  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

'  *  Gee ! "  I  says.  ' '  I  would  rather  have  a  dog  that 
is  a  little  deaf  than  a  cat  that  meows  when  she 
can't." 

But  nobody  said  nothing. 

1  'It  would  be  a  good  thing  to  raise  kittens  from 
that  cat, ' '  I  says. 

But  nobody  answered  that,  neither.  So  I  give  it 
up. 

After  breakfast  me  and  Valdes  went  out  and  sat 
on  the  green  slope.  I  just  lazed  around  and 
watched  the  black  and  white  cow  h'isting  herself 
up  to  the  different  mouthfuls  on  the  steep  place; 
and  then  I  looked  up  at  the  blue  sky  and  happened 
to  think  it  was  the  Fourth  of  July— and  they  was 
having  just  the  right  weather  for  that  chicken  din 
ner  on  the  Speed. 

"How  long  do  you  think  it  might  take  the  Speed 
to  get  back  this  far  ? ' '  Valdes  says. 

"Two  or  three  days,"  I  says.  And  then  he  just 
sat  and  watched  the  river  going  by  as  if  that  water 
was  time  and  he  was  seeing  it  pass.  And  I  says  to 
myself,  "When  the  Speed  makes  this  landing  on 
the  down  trip  there  is  going  to  be  something 
doing." 

Nothing  went  past  for  a  while  but  the  trunk  of 
an  old  cottonwood  tree.  Then  there  come  a  piece 
of  something  that  looked  like  a  pig-pen,  making 
five  or  six  miles  an  hour.  Then  there  come  a  boat 
that  I  did  n't  know  loaded  down  with  buffalo  bones. 
It  was  the  first  I  had  seen  that  year  and  I  looked  at 
her  as  long  as  she  was  in  sight,  because  bones  was 
getting  scarce  up  the  Missouri  and  I  guessed  she 


A  SOUND  IN  THJE  DISTANCE 


79 


"  No  Blackfeet  Indians  could  shoot  through  that  boat" 


had  been  away  up  to  Montana  to  get  them.  But 
she  was  n't  a  regular  old  Missouri  boat  like  the 
Speed;  she  was  just  one  of  the  fancy-looking  pack 
ets,  all  cabined  over  as  high  as  her  splash-board, 
with  a  texas  on  top  of  that  and  the  pilot-house  up 
on  top  of  that,  all  skimming  along  on  the  water. 
She  was  n't  a  Fort  Benton  boat  at  all,  by  rights; 
and  I  bet  she  WOULD  N'T  'a'  gone  up  there  a  few 
years  back  when  there  was  Indians. 

The  Speed  was  n't  built  like  that.    In  the  first 


80  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

place  the  Speed  had  a  low  one-story  cabin  and  a 
hull  pretty  much  like  an  extra-long  canal-boat. 
There  was  n  't  any  texas  atop  of  the  cabin,  either ; 
and  so  the  wheel-house  stood  up  like  a  tower  all  by 
itself  with  long  stairs  going  up  to  it.  And  the 
cabin  was  n 't  near  as  wide  as  the  hull,  either ;  and 
that  left  the  deck  like  a  sidewalk  all  along  each 
side;  and  them  was  the  hogways.  You  bet,  when 
the  hogways  was  all  piled  up  with  cordwood  around 
the  cabin,  no  Blackfeet  Indians  could  shoot  through 
that  boat. 

The  cabin  did  n't  go  clear  to  the  stern,  either. 
Only  the  engine-room  roof  was  back  there  and  that 
was  so  low  that  the  splash-board  stood  up  in  front 
of  the  wheel  like  a  back-yard  fence— but  higher. 
Them  kind  could  go  right  up  to  Fort  Benton  and 
do  business— before  they  went  and  built  railroads. 
But  pshaw !  that  was  ten  years  ago ;  and  now  most 
of  the  buffalos  was  killed  and  the  Indians  shot  off 
and  there  was  n't  anything  to  do  but  haul  down 
bones.  A  good  thing  never  does  last  long.  We 
did  n't  go  up  there  at  all  no  more;  and  it  sort  of 
made  me  disgusted  to  see  that  fancy  boat  come 
down  from  where  we  ought  to  a-run.  But  it 
did  n't  pay  no  more;  and  so  we  just  worked  the 
lower  river  and  hauled  wheat  and  such  truck  to 
St.  Louis.  And  everybody  said  the  way  the  Speed 
outlived  all  the  others  and  kept  on  top  of  water  was 
ridiculous.  A  high-toned  passenger,  that  just  went 
up  to  see  the  scenery,  said  the  Speed  was  intact  all 
over.  And  he  said  some  day  she  'd  go  off  like  the 
one  hoss  shay,  whatever  kind  of  an  accident  that 


A  SOUND  IN  THE  DISTANCE  81 

was— I  don't  know.  But  she  could  make  some  of 
them  boats  look  ridiculous  when  it  come  right  down 
to  making  a  run. 

Some  ways  she  was  like  home.  You  stepped  out 
of  your  kitchen  at  the  back  of  the  cabin,  and  there 
was  your  back  yard  on  the  engine-house,  with  your* 
back-yard  fence  in  front  of  the  wheel.  And  you 
could  step  down  and  take  a  long  walk  outdoors  on 
your  sidewalk  up  to  the  boilers.  It  was  just  like 
living  at  home  and  seeing  the  scenery  wind  past. 
You  could  wheel  a  wheelbarrow  all  round  that  boat 
except  the  stern— only  we  did  n't  put  the  coal  for 
ward  in  wheelbarrows.  That  high-toned  passenger 
wanted  to  know  why  we  did  n't  use  wheelbarrows  in 
stead  of  big  boxes.  But  that  would  n't  a-done  at 
all;  it  only  takes  one  man  to  wheel  a  wheelbarrow. 
A  steamboat  nigger  can't  work  all  alone  that  way, 
like  an  Irishman.  And  besides  he  could  n't  put  no 
style  into  it.  So  you  have  to  have  a  big  bin  with 
handles  at  each  end,  and  then  the  niggers  can  coon- 
jine  with  it  and  see  which  team  is  the  best.  If  you 
done  any  of  them  fancy  steps  with  a  wheelbarrow 
it  would  dump  all  the  coal  into  the  river;  and 
what  would  be  the  sense  in  that  ?  You  can 't  run  a 
Fort  Benton  boat  that  way.  They  don 't  make  them 
that  way  no  more ;  and,  besides,  when  I  was  old 
enough  to  go  on  the  river  the  Indians  was  all  get 
ting  played  out.  I  told  Valdes  about  it;  but  he 
did  n't  seem  to  care  much. 

Well,  while  I  was  laying  there  thinking  about 
the  Indians,  and  how  everything  was  going  to  the 
dogs,  I  began  to  hear  a  way-off  sound  like  milking* 


82  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

a  cow  long  and  slow  into  a  tin  pail.  I  sat  up  and 
listened  and  then  it  got  more  like  snoring  and  I 
stood  up. 

"I  bet  that  's  the  Speed,''  I  says.  "And  it 
sounds  down-stream." 

Valdes  was  interested  in  that;  he  got  up,  too,  and 
looked  down  river.  But  there  was  n't  anything  in 
sight. 

"It  can't  be,"  he  says.  "We  started  after  she 
did  and  we  did  n't  pass  her." 

"Bet  you  sight  unseen,"  I  says,  "it  '11  be  her 
that  '11  come  round  them  bluffs.  I  know  her  pipes. 
She  must  'a'  gone  up  the  Osage  for  something— 
that  's  what  kept  her. ' ' 

We  stood  and  watched ;  and  pretty  soon  we  seen 
her  nose.  Then  her  two  tall  stacks  come  trailing 
her  smoke  around  the  corner.  I  could  see  she  was 
burning  coal  on  that  stretch,  for  it  come  out  pretty 
black;  and  she  laid  it  behind  her  in  two  long, 
straight  lines— it  was  such  a  quiet  summer  day. 
And  she  had  n't  come  far  when  you  could  see  al 
ready  it  was  Fourth7  b'f  July  on  that  boat.  There 
was  Blue  and  Red  toting  a  bin  up  and  down  the 
hogways  in  fine  style,  with  a  smile  on  their  faces 
and  their  big  black  chests  sticking  out;  and  them 
putting  in  the  fancy  steps  like  you  'd  think  a 
couple  of  hundred  pounds  of  coal  was  n't  nothing. 
There  was  Aunt  Jemima  picking  chickens  at  the 
stern ;  and  there  was  Griswold  in  his  little  pol 
ished  boots  and  gray  slouch  hat  standing  in  the 
bows,  as  straight  as  a  jack-staff,  and  looking 
straight  ahead  like  he  always  done;  and  there  was 


c 


Blue  and  Red  toting  a  bin" 


83 


84  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

Lang  up  in  the  pilot-house.  The  old  Speed  was 
blowing  the  steam  high  and  kicking  up  behind  and 
taking  it  so  easy  you  'd  think  she  was  just  laying 
on  her  back  and  stretching  her  lazy  arms  back  and 
forth  at  the  stern  and  snoring  her  way  along.  If 
there  's  anything  I  like,  it  's  to  see  two  columns  of 
steam  taking  turns  with  each  other  blowing  up  on  a 
fine  clear  day. 

Well,  I  made  motions  with  my  arms  and  hollered 
through  my  hands  and  waved  my  red  handkerchief 
till  they  seen  us ;  and  then  that  new  whistle  we  got 
turned  loose  like  the  devil  hollering  for  help.  She 
swung  inshore  and  shut  down  and  sailed  up  along 
side  just  as  the  staging  was  a-swinging  out— a 
prettier  landing  than  that  Muscoutah  EVER  made. 
As  soon  as  the  end  of  the  staging  was  low  enough 
I  jumped  on  and  ran  ahead  and  stood  to  see  what 
would  happen  to  Griswold  when  Valdes  would  come 
aboard  with  his  valise. 

Well,  nothing  happened— leastways  nothing  that 
you  would  notice  if  you  did  n't  know  the  cards. 
You  see  it  wras  like  this ;  it  was  kind  of  like  playing 
poker.  When  Valdes  come  up  the  gang-plank, 
Griswold  suddenly  lighted  up  with  surprise  and 
made  a  move  and  then  stopped  and  passed  it  off  his 
face  like  there  was  nothing  doing— reason  of  which 
was  that  Valdes  caught  his  eye  the  same  as  if  he 
was  looking  straight  through  him  and  then  glanced 
off  over  his  head  like  he  was  a  stranger  that  he 
never  heard  of.  Nothing  to  it  but  wearing  his  own 
face  pretty  stern  like  he  had  a  right  to  it  and  it 
belonged  to  him.  And  Griswold  the  same. 


A  SOUND  IN  THE  DISTANCE  85 

What  passed  between  them  was  quicker  than 
wink ;  and  you  can 't  very  well  tell  about  it  when  it 
AIN'T  NOTHING.  But  there  was  something  to  it 
when  you  knew  the  cards  like  I  did ;  and  I  bet  when 
Griswold  saw  his  old  friend  come  back  after  ten 
years  and  pass  him  up  like  that  HE  had  a  pretty 
good  idea  it  was  something.  And  he  seen  it  so 
quick  you  would  n't  a-noticed  it.  You  take  two 
fellows  that  's  used  to  poker,  that  way,  and  you 
can't  hardly  set  your  watch  by  their  faces. 

Valdes  just  went  up  to  the  office  and  seen  his 
things  put  into  the  safe  and  went  into  the  cabin 
and  sat  down.  When  I  went  out  by  the  boilers  and 
looked  at  Griswold  he  was  just  doing  some  cussing 
that  he  had  to  do  to  get  the  tackle  working  and 
bring  the  staging  forward.  I  bet  Griswold  was 
doing  some  important  waiting  till  Valdes  would 
show  his  hand;  but  it  was  too  deep  for  me.  If  it 
had  been  Clancy  he  would  'a'  jumped  Griswold 
on  the  spot ;  and  there  would  a-been  something 
done  about  it.  And  it  would  a-been  worth  while, 
too. 

When  I  had  made  up  an  excuse  for  missing  the 
boat  and  fixed  it  all  right,  I  went  back  on  the  en 
gine-house  deck  where  Rags  was.  I  searched  him 
all  over ;  and  he  seemed  to  be  all  right  as  well  as  I 
could  make  out  under  his  thick  hair.  His  tail 
was  n't  lame  anyways;  and  all  the  time  he  was 
wagging  it  he  stood  with  his  head  down  like  he  was 
ashamed  of  me  for  being  away  from  him  like  that. 
Dogs  know  how  to  make  you  understand  some 
things. 


86 


PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 


By  the  time  I  got  my  coat  off  and  my  sleeves 
rolled  back  to  catch  up  on  my  chores  we  were  out 
into  the  channel  again  and  settled  down  to  a  steady 
gait ;  and  then  I  began  to  forget  things  and  feel  at 
home.  After  you  're  used  to  it  all  you  never  do 
feel  real  at  home  unless  she  's  running.  When  she 


u  The  fat  captain  in  his  arm-chair  " 

stops  it  's  like  trying  to  sleep  in  a  bed  when  you  're 
used  to  a  cradle :  I  never  could  sleep  well  laying  up 
at  St.  Louis.  But  when  your  bunk  begins  to  quiver 
and  get  life  into  it  you  can  roll  right  over  and 


A  SOUND  IN  THE  DISTANCE  87 

snooze.  Daytimes  it  's  the  same ;  the  engines  go  on 
keeping  time  until  it  's  worked  right  into  you  and 
you  sort  of  expect  things  to  go  on  that  way  regular 
without  any  end  to  it.  And  some  fine  day  when 
you  're  feeling  real  safe  is  when  you  get  your  com 
ings. 

But  this  was  one  of  them  days  when  it  would  n't 
be  natural  for  anything  to  happen.  Everybody 
was  feeling  good;  and  I  says  to  myself,  George 
Washington  was  smarter  than  all  of  them  when  he 
picked  out  early  summer  for  the  Fourth  of  July. 
There  was  the  extra  cook  rolling  biscuits  with  both 
hands  and  humming  busy  to  himself  in  the  pantry ; 
and  there  was  Lang  up  in  the  pilot-house  whist 
ling  like  a  bird  in  a  glass  cage  and  standing  with 
one  foot  on  a  spoke  as  he  brought  her  along  an 
easy  channel ;  and  there  was  Aunt  Jemima  singing 
' '  Sweet  turtle-dove ' '  back  by  the  splash-board,  and 
taking  naked  chickens  out  of  one  tub  and  putting 
them  into  another  till  she  would  get  them  all 
dressed ;  and  there  was  the  fat  captain  in  his  arm 
chair  that  nearly  filled  the  little  office,  a-twiddling 
his  thumbs  and  looking  happy  at  the  clerk  on  his 
high  stool  turning  over  the  bills  of  lading;  and 
there  was  thirty  roustabouts  playing  craps  in  the 
hold  and  all  letting  their  breath  out  sudden  when 
the  dice  rolled— like  a  wood-chopper  when  he 
heaves  an  ax  ( and  the  whole  caboodle  of  them  mak 
ing  more  hard  breaths  than  if  they  were  chopping 
down  a  forest)  ;  and  there  was  Blue  and  Red,  which 
was  our  best  coonjiners,  toting  a  bin  up  and  down 
the  starboard  hogway  like  it  was  a  cake-walk  and 


88  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 


"  To  wet  the  pilot's  whistle" 

them  springing  their  knees  and  bending  from  side 
to  side  and  wagging  their  heads  like  it  was  awful 
heavy,  and  working  their  wrists  on  the  handles  like 
it  was  n't,  and  putting  so  much  power  and  style 
into  it  that  you  'd  think  it  was  them  that  was  shov- 


A  SOUND  IN  THE  DISTANCE  89 

ing  the  boat  along ;  and  there  was  the  little  freckle- 
faced  tenor  and  his  tall  partner  trying  to  do  the 
same  and  singing  "The  old  boat  a-moverin',  a-mov 
erin'  along";  and  there  was  the  engineer  out  on 
the  fan-tail  a-oiling  up  the  crank ;  and  there  was  the 
engines  breathing  deep  and  long,  and  the  wheel 
slop-dashing  the  water  up  against  the  stern-sheath 
ing  like  a  whole  waterfalls;  and  there  was  me  get 
ting  a  pitcher  of  ice-water  ready  and  taking  it 
clinking  up  the  steep  stair  to  wet  the  pilot's  whis 
tle;  and  there  was  a  smell  of  scalded  chicken. 
Them  niggers  could  n  't  a-asked  for  a  better  Fourth 
of  July. 

Sometimes  there  was  a  little  puff  of  a  breeze 
astern  that  would  take  the  smell  of  chicken  feathers 
through  the  boat  and  up  the  hogways  and  give 
everybody  to  understand  that  everything  was  good. 
And  I  guess  the  biggest  noise  on  that  boat  was  the 
crap-shooters  in  the  hold— which  was  all  the  roust 
abouts  has  to  do  between  landings.  To  hear  their 
breath  a  person  would  a-thought  that  the  money 
went  to  the  one  that  had  the  best  lungs  and  could 
say  "Huh"  the  strongest.  Their  breath  made  as 
much  noise  as  the  pipes.  The  exhaust  of  them  thirty 
roustabouts  sounded  as  if  the  Speed  was  carrying 
more  power  than  any  boat  that  ever  steamed  up 
that  river.  This  day  they  were  thinking  of  chicken 
and  whooping  it  up  to  celebrate. 


CHAPTER  VII 


A  BLACK  FOURTH  OF  JULY 


HEN  I  come  down  from  the 
pilot-house  I  went  down 
into  the  hold  to  take  a 
look ;  and  just  then  the 
steward  came  through, 
giving  warnings  right  and 
left. 

' '  Don 't  you  fellows  take 
up  your  plate  and  crowd 
around  the  pantry  door 
and  grab  stuff  when  it 
comes  out  this  noon,"  he 
says.  "Sit  down  at  them  trestles  on  the  engine- 
room  deck— that  's  what  they  're  put  there  for— 
and  when  it  comes  you  stay  there  and  eat  it.  This 
grabbing  stuff  and  going  off  and  then  throwing 
half  of  it  away  has  got  to  stop." 

"Yessah.  We  ain't  gwine  do  dat."  And  they 
all  smiled  and  nodded  their  heads.  "We  ain't 
gwine  throw  away  no  CHICKEN." 

"This  thing  of  grabbing  your  plate  chuck  full 
and  then  sitting  along  the  hogways  to  eat  and  get 
ting  stuck  on  it  and  scraping  it  into  the  river  won 't 
do.  Do  you  understand  that?" 

90 


A  BLACK  FOURTH  OF  JULY  91 

"Yessah.  We  'se  all  gwine  do  good  dis  'Mancipa 
tion  Day.  We  ain't  gwine  throw  away  no 
CHICKEN." 

Well,  I  hoped  they  did  understand  it.  Whenever 
the  dinner-bell  rang  they  would  all  come  tearing 
down  the  hogways  and  climb  up  atop  of  the  engine- 
house  like  a  lot  of  pirates.  And  about  half  of  them 
would  grab  a  tin  plate  apiece  and  wait  at  the  gang 
way  where  they  could  get  first  reach  when  it  come 
out.  You  come  sailing  out  with  a  big  pan  of  hom 
iny  and  when  you  got  to  the  ones  at  the  table  it 
would  all  be  gone.  Same  way  with  the  hog;  you 
could  n  't  rassle  through  the  mob  with  it.  Then  the 
ones  that  got  so  much  they  were  afraid  somebody 
might  steal  it  would  sit  along  the  edge  with  their 
feet  hanging  over  the  side.  You  'd  see  the  Speed 
going  up  the  Missouri  all  lined  round  the  edge  with 
roustabouts  with  tin  plates  in  their  laps,  and  them 
all  piled  full  of  hominy  and  hog.  At  meal-times 
you  could  n't  see  anything  but  teeth  and  hominy 
—all  mixed  up.  And  sometimes  molasses  with 
grease  poured  all  over  and  mixed  up,  too.  They 
had  good  appetites.  Well,  I  hoped  they  did  under 
stand  what  the  steward  said,  because  there  were  a 
couple  of  dozen  of  chickens  and  I  had  to  help  get 
the  stuff  to  the  trestles.  When  you  take  a  big  lot  of 
boiled  chicken  through  a  lot  of  roustabouts  that  's 
laying  for  you  with  knives  and  forks  it  ain't  no 
easy  job.  It  's  like  being  lynched. 

"Remember  that  now,"  says  the  steward,  looking 
back.  "You  don't  fool  around  that  way  with 
chicken. ' ' 


92  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 


"All  lined  round  the  edge  with  roustabouts" 

When  I  seen  that  they  understood  it  I  went  up 
where  Aunt  Jemima  was  getting  them  ready. 

*  *  I  'clar  to  goodness,  Honey, ' '  she  says,  when  she 
seen  it  was  me;  "run  an'  put  on  dat  white  shirt 
befo'  we  gets  to  Scipio.  I  has  it  all  laid  out  fo'  you 
on  de  bunk.  An'  when  de  whistle  blow  you  come 
an'  stan'  nice  by  my  pantry  do'.  I  specs  dey  's 
gwine  be  heaps  o'  folks  waitin'  to  see  de  Speed 
make  de  landin',  an'  we  wants  to  make  a  good 
showin'  dis  heah  'Mancipation  Day." 

Well,  I  did  n't  listen  to  her  no  more.  I  went 
into  my  room;  and  there  it  was  laid  out  all  right— 
white  and  stiff,  with  its  cuffs  crossed  on  its  Hosom. 
I  thought  maybe  I  would  put  it  on.  But  I  could  n  't 


A  BLACK  FOURTH  OF  JULY  93 

make  up  my  mind  to  do  it.  It  was  all  buzz-sawy 
around  the  collar.  I  says  to  myself,  'this  thing 
has  gone  far  enough  and  if  I  don't  put  a  stop  to  it 
there  won't  be  no  end  of  my  standing  out  on  deck 
just  to  show  off  her  washing  and  have  everybody 
notice  how  white  it  is.  Just  because  I  stood  for  her 
at  Madison  City  I  'd  have  to  put  on  a  clean  shirt 
EVERY  holiday  and  maybe  Sundays.  Besides, 
there  '11  only  be  a  pack  of  black  girls  in  red  and 
blue  and  yellow  dresses  along  with  their  fellows 
and  I  don't  care  for  that  town  anyways.  I  did  n't 
come  from  there.  And  it  ain't  nothing  to  me." 
So  I  went  back  and  told  her  I  was  just  going  to 
wash  my  face  and  that  was  all ;  and  I  'd  show  them 
how  white  I  was.  Well,  she  looked  over  her  specs 
and  picked  off  a  few  more  pin-feathers  and  got  the 
chickens  all  in  one  tub ;  and  then  she  took  hold  of 
me  and  coaxed  me  to  come  and  get  a  cooky  in  the 
pantry.  And  then  she  handed  me  a  white  shirt. 

Just  as  she  was  putting  that  shirt  into  my  hand, 
something  happened.  There  come  a  smashing  and 
a  crashing  of  timber  like  a  whole  lumber-yard 
splitting  up,  and  I  seen  Rags  make  a  bee-line 
through  the  kitchen  gangway  into  the  cabin  with 
his  tail  between  his  legs.  The  deck  gave  a  thump 
and  Aunt  Jemima  dropped  the  shirt  and  I  got  so 
excited  that  I  stepped  on  the  bosom  of  it ;  and  then 
all  of  the  crew  that  could  leave  their  places  come 
piling  astern  to  see  what  had  happened — the  cap 
tain  and  the  clerk  and  the  mate  and  all  the  roust 
abouts  from  the  hold.  When  I  got  out  on  the 
engine-deck  they  were  all  standing  looking  down 


94  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

a  big  splintered  hole  at  the  water  boiling  before  the 
wheel.  A  log  had  got  caught  in  the  wheel  and  come 
over  endways  and  tore  out  part  of  the  stern  sheath 
ing  and  ripped  through  the  deck  and  gone  through 
the  back  of  the  engine-room  into  the  river  again. 
It  had  n't  broke  the  wheel  or  the  steering-gear  or 
touched  the  machinery;  the  hull  was  n't  damaged 
much  and  everything  was  going  along  the  same. 

But  the  chickens  was  gone.  That  log  had  hit 
smack  on  that  tub  of  chickens  and  took  it  along. 
It  did  n't  even  leave  the  place  where  Aunt  Jemima 
was  sitting.  And  she  was  standing  giving  "thanks 
to  de  Lawd"  that  he  had  sent  her  to  make  me  put 
on  a  white  shirt.  There  was  the  crew  looking  down 
where  the  water  was  churning  like  a  flour-mill,  and 
saying  how  it  did  n't  amount  to  so  much  and 
was  n't  serious  and  so  on  (but  they  did  n't  know 
yet  that  the  chickens  had  been  setting  there). 

When  I  let  out  what  the  real  accident  was  that 
crew  commenced  to  turn  solemn.  They  sloped 
away  to  different  parts  of  the  boat  looking  sour 
and  sad.  And  I  says  to  myself,  "There  won't 
be  no  grabbing  of  chicken  this  Fourth  of  July." 
The  river  done  all  the  grabbing.  That  was  when 
things  got  a  start  to  go  wrong.  And  all  they  need 
is  a  start. 

When  we  got  to  Scipio  there  was  a  lot  of  them  all 
over  the  bank  in  their  Sunday-go-to-meeting  clothes 
to  see  the  Speed  come  in.  But  there  was  n't  much 
doing  on  the  Speed.  The  girls  all  waved  their 
handkerchiefs  to  the  crew;  but  some  of  them 
did  n't  even  come  out  of  the  hold.  Red  and  Blue 


A  BLACK  FOURTH  OF  JULY  95 

did  n't  put  on  any  fancy  moves;  it  was  just  plain 
work  and  putting  coal  forward.  We  got  away 
from  there  without  much  good-by.  Down  in  the 
hold  there  were  a  few  crap  games;  but  they  were 
jawing  and  looking  ugly  and  just  trying  to  get  one 
another's  money.  A  distance  above  Scipio  we 
struck  a  sort  of  sawyer  that  was  under  water.  It 
went  thundering  and  ramming  along  the  bottom  in 
a  way  to  make  your  hair  stand  up  ;  but  them  roust 
abouts  sat  on  bottom  and  never  batted  an  eye. 
They  did  n't  have  no  more  to  lose.  You  could  n't 
a-disturbed  them  if  you  'd  a-blowed  up  the  boilers. 
At  the  next  landing  they  did  n't  work  like  Gris- 
wold  wanted  them  to;  they  did  n't  liven  up  and 


That  crew  commenced  to  turn  solemn." 


96  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

get  any  spirit  or  style  into  the  loading.  When  they 
was  passing  him  they  would  take  a  couple  of  quick 
steps  and  then  poke  along  again.  Then  Griswold 
got  on  his  ear.  He  looked  around  and  got  a  barrel 
stave  and  fetched  a  tall  nigger  a  clip  on  the  shins 
and  then  stood  there  as  the  line  passed ;  and  he  laid 
it  on  any  one  that  come  handy.  They  did  n  't  seem 
to  move  right  and  Griswold  got  worse  and  worse. 

At  the  next  landing  they  had  to  roll  barrels  on. 
When  they  had  got  into  line  and  had  them  going 
pretty  well  the  little  freckled  tenor  rolled  one 
crooked  and  it  went  right  off  the  gang-plank  into 
the  river.  Griswold  grabbed  him  and  give  a  fancy 
twist  that  sent  him  into  the  river  after  it.  He  swam 
around  and  fished  it  out  and  got  in  line  with  it 
again  and  just  made  a  wet  track  up  the  middle  of 
the  gang-plank  without  saying  a  word. 

Next  thing  the  Speed  done  was  to  find  a  sand  bar. 
Lucky  for  us  we  were  running  slow  and  feeling 
our  way  because  Lang  was  in  doubt ;  so  we  just  run 
our  nose  on  it  and  backed  off  without  having  to  do 
any  sparring.  Lang  was  kind  of  mixed  up  on  that 
bottom ;  things  seemed  to  have  been  shifting  about, 
so  we  put  two  niggers  out  in  the  yawl  to  row  ahead 
and  find  the  way  with  the  painted  pole.  After 
considerable  poking  around  and  hollering  the 
depths  we  crawled  out  of  there  on  five  feet  and  got 
into  the  channel  again.  Then  we  pelted  along  and 
things  looked  like  they  were  going  to  settle  down 
and  straighten  out.  Everything  was  the  same  as 
usual  except  down  in  the  hold.  It  was  gloomy  and 
disgusted  down  there.  And  some  of  them  looked 


A  BLACK  FOURTH  OF  JULY  97 

as  if  the  fine  weather  made  them  tired.  Blue  and 
Red  was  down  there  now  because  another  team  had 
been  put  in  their  place ;  and  they  were  playing 
craps  and  disagreeing  about  every  little  thing.  The 
way  they  could  find  something  to  fight  about  every 
time  the  dice  rolled  out  you  'd  never  think  they 


"  Two  niggers  out  in  the  yawl  " 

was  partners  at  all.  But  you  could  n't  expect  any 
different.  When  you  're  all  fixed  for  Fourth  of 
July  dinner  it  's  kind  of  aggravating  to  have  an 
accident  to  the  chickens. 

Aunt  Jemima  and  the  extra  cook  were  rassling 
an  ordinary  dinner  together  and  it  was  going  to 
be  late.  While  I  was  sawing  stove-wood  to  hurry 
things  along,  that  high-toned  passenger  come  back 


98  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

to  get  a  drink  out  of  the  water-barrel.  I  showed 
him  which  barrel  had  just  been  filled  and  which 
one  had  the  worst  of  the  mud  settled  to  the  bottom 
and  he  could  take  his  choice  whichever  way  he  liked 
it.  He  was  the  fellow  that  was  along  last  trip  and 
he  had  stayed  on  and  come  right  over  again.  He 
gathered  rocks  to  study  the  insides  of  them  and 
looked  at  the  scenery  with  a  double-barreled  spy 
glass.  He  was  a  professor  of  something  taking  a 
vacation  and  he  had  come  up  there  to  improve  his 
mind.  He  was  glad  he  come  again.  He  said  it  was 
worth  it.  He  said  he  would  almost  like  to  come 
another  trip  if  he  was  real  sure  that  nothing  seri 
ous  would  happen.  He  was  real  educated  and  I 
said  to  myself  that  he  would  know  how  the  bore 
holes  got  away  up  on  them  rocks  if  anybody  would. 

Just  when  I  started  to  ask  him  about  it  there 
was  the  devil  to  pay.  There  was  a  ringing  in  the 
engine-room  and  a  sound  of  running  back  and  forth 
in  the  hold  and  a  yelling  and  talking  all  together; 
and  then  the  engines  shut  down.  There  was  a 
creaking  of  the  tackle  up  forward ;  and  when  I  ran 
and  looked  round  the  corner  of  the  cabin  the  gang 
plank  was  just  swinging  out  over  an  island  in  the 
middle  of  the  river. 

"Keep  quiet— don't  get  excited.  We  '11  all  be 
able  to  get  to  land,"  says  the  Professor.  And  he 
was  so  excited  himself  that  he  jumped  off  the 
engine-house  and  made  a  break  for  the  bows. 

Just  as  he  got  there  I  saw  Blue  and  Red  go 
marching  up  the  staging— and  it  not  more  than 
half  lowered— with  Griswold  walking  behind  and 


A  BLACK  FOURTH  OF  JULY  99 

driving  them  along.  And  when  them  two  come  to 
the  end  they  went  off  the  toe  of  Griswold 's  boot 
into  the  willows  of  that  island.  There  was  blood 
dripping  from  Blue 's  left  ear  and  Red  had  his  fist 
clenched.  The  whole  black  crew  had  swarmed  out 
on  the  main  decks  to  look  at  them  two  being  left  011 
that  place. 

The  Professor  come  back  slow  and  climbed  up 
where  I  was  and  says  to  me,  "They  are  marooned." 
At  that  I  jumped  down  and  ran  forward  to  find  if 
it  was  true.  But  it  was  n't  anything  of  the  kind. 
There  was  n't  anything  to  it  except  that  the  mate 
put  them  off  onto  the  island.  You  see  they  got  into 
an  argument  and  Red  he  up  and  went  at  Blue  with 
a  hatchet;  but  he  only  struck  him  a  glancing  blow 
and  cut  his  ear  some.  And  just  as  Griswold 
come  to  settle  the  trouble  he  seen  the  island  and  the 
idea  what  to  do  about  it  popped  right  into  his  head. 
So  now  them  two  could  stay  alone  together  on  the 
island  and  have  it  out.  Well,  them  two  was  big  and 
black  and  matched  like  a  team  of  horses— one  just 
as  strong  as  the  other — and  I  could  n't  see  how  it 
was  ever  going  to  come  out.  I  says  to  myself,  "I 
don't  see  how  EITHER  of  them  is  ever  going  to  get 
the  best  of  the  other."  But  Griswold  thought  of 
it  in  a  second  and  put  them  off  and  left  them  there 
to  do  it.  Would  n't  that  take  the  lead  out  of  your 
pencil  ? 

We  were  a  little  slow  pulling  out  of  there  and 
getting  headway  again.  And  when  we  was  about 
three  hundred  yards  above  the  island  we  seen  Blue 
and  Red  come  out  of  the  willows  and  both  stand  at 


100  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

the  head  of  it  shaking  their  fists  together  at  the  ones 
on  the  boat.  And  then  Red  opened  up  his  mouth 
and  threw  out  his  chest  and  called  across  the  water 
like  he  was  giving  soundings,  long  and  slow  and 
plain : 


*'  *  No  chicken  nohow! ' 

"Yo-u-u-u  NIGGERS!  Yo-u-u-u  ain't— gwine 
-hab— no— chicken— NOHOW ! ' ' 

I  could  see  that  clone  both  of  them  a  heap  of 
good.  And  then  they  grew  smaller  and  smaller  and 
faded  out  of  sight  standing  there  together  on  that 
empty  island. 

It  was  after  dinner-time  and  all  them  niggers  was 
complaining  about  being  hungry. 

"Aunt  Jemima,"  I  says,  "I  '11  set  the  tables  if 
you  let  me  ring  the  bell." 

"Go  on  an'  do  it,  Honey.  We  's  gwine  soon  be 
ready. ' ' 


A  BLACK  FOURTH  OF  JULY      101 

I  got  the  four  trestles  and  slammed  the  big  tops, 
which  were  like  barn-doors,  on  them,  one  on  each 
side  of  the  exhaust-pipes  where  they  belonged. 
Then  I  got  a  stack  of  tin  plates  on  my  arm  and 
done  it  without  making  but  one  miss— and  that  is 
pretty  near  as  good  as  a  steward  can  do.  All  you 
have  to  do  is  to  stand  a  little  piece  back  with  the 
plates  on  your  arm  and  sail  them  out  to  their 
places  like  you  was  dealing  cards.  If  one  don't  go 
just  on  the  spot  you  can  kind  of  straighten  it  out 
when  you  put  the  knives  and  forks  around.  It 
ain't  nothing  when  you  know  how— but  everybody 
can't  learn  it.  It  took  me  weeks  and  weeks  and  I 
had  to  get  them  plates  from  the  cook  and  practise 
between  meal-times.  When  I  had  the  knives  and 
forks  around  I  got  the  two  molasses  cans  and  socked 
each  in  the  middle  of  its  table  and  says  to  the  cook, 
"Are  you  ready?" 

"Heady,"  he  says. 

"Let  her  go,"  I  says,  and  rang  the  bell. 

About  the  sixth  clap  out  of  that  bell  it  was  n't 
any  use  to  ring  it  any  more ;  they  was  mostly  all 
there  and  the  rest  coming.  They  come  stampeding 
down  the  hogways  and  tumbling  up  on  the  engine- 
house  and  making  more  noise  than  I  was;  but  I 
took  my  ring  out  of  that  bell  anyhow.  By  the  time 
I  was  done  they  had  grabbed  up  their  plates  and 
crowded  round  the  first  panful  that  come  out  of 
the  kitchen  and  cleaned  it  out.  When  they  had 
tackled  everything  that  come  out  and  got  their 
plates  heaped  up  they  started  off  to  sit  along  the 
edge  of  the  boat.  Then  the  steward  come. 


,102  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

"You  fellows  sit  right  down  at  that  table,"  he 

says.     "Don't  think  that  what  I  said  don't  count 

just  because  it  ain't  chicken.    I  've  seen  the  mate 

and  if  you  eat  along  them  hogways  he  '11  fix  your 

hash  and  fix  it  good. ' ' 

That  made  it  look  different.     They  did  n't  care 

for  the  steward;  he  was  only  a  cook.     But  they 

cared  for  Griswold  you  bet. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


TROUBLE  DOES  SOME  MORE  BREWING 

HEN  that  was  done  I  had 
to  go  down  in  the  engine- 
room  to  find  whether  the 
engineer  was  coming  up 
to  the  first  or  second 
table  in  the  cabin.  The 
engineer  was  oiling  up 
the  slides  and  touching 
the  cross-head  quick  with 
his  fingers  whenever  it 
passed  to  see  if  it  was 
running  hot ;  and  the  old 
carpenter  was  putting  up 
some  boards  temporary  where  the  hole  had  been 
stove  in  the  back,  and  when  I  told  the  steward 
what  they  said  I  come  back  to  watch  the  carpenter 
hammering. 

I  had  n't  been  down  there  hardly  a  minute  when 
something  started  like  wild  horses  tearing  loose 
over  my  head.  It  come  sudden  all  at  once ;  and  I 
heard  them  niggers  jumping  up  together  and  tum 
bling  over  each  other  and  clearing  out  in  all  direc 
tions  with  their  heavy  shoes  pounding  on  that 

103 


104 


PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 


drumhead  of  a  roof  and  making  more  noise  than  if 
a  bluff  was  falling  on  us  in  chunks.  I  made  a  run 
to  get  from  under,  because  I  was  beginning  to  get 
RATTLED.  When  I  got  to  the  little  doorway  of 
the  engine-room  that  opens  on  the  hogway,  it  was 
all  choked  up  Avith  niggers  crowd 
ing  with  their  backs  to  it  and  shut 
ting  off  the  light.  I  ran  across 
the  boat  to  the  other  and  it  was 
the  same. 

1  'Git  away  from  that  door," 
says  the  engineer,  and  he  come 
and  hit  them  on  the  shins  with  a 
monkey-wrench.  A\7hen  they  felt 
that  they  moved  over  and  let  his 
light  in  again ;  and  I  got  out  and 
went  up  on  deck. 

It  was  n't  nothing.  But  it 
looked  like  it  was  going  to  happen 
again,  so  I  went  quick  up  the 
stairs  and  stood  on  the  hurricane 
deck  where  there  was  the  whole 
roof  of  the  cabin  to  run  back  on. 
You  see  them  exhaust-pipes  used  to  collect  hot 
water  down  in  themselves  and  when  there  got  to  be 
a  lot  it  would  choke  them  so  that  they  would  have 
a  spasm  and  cough  it  up.  They  were  big  tall  pipes 
that  blew  high,  and  when  they  started  to  get  rid 
of  a  few  bucketsf ul  it  would  rain  boiling  water  that 
would  scald  a  chicken.  That  's  why  them  niggers 
got  out  of  there  quicker  than  scat,  each  one  grab 
bing  up  his  plate.  They  were  scattered  in  the 


The  engineer 


TROUBLE  DOES  SOME  MORE  BREWING  105 

farthest  corners  with  their  plates  in  their  hands  but 
no  place  to  go  to  and  eat. 

First  place  they  could  n't  eat  on  the  hogways 
because  the  mate  would  be  after  them;  and  they 
could  n't  come  up  where  I  was  on  the  hurricane 
because  that  was  higher  than  ANY  niggers  was 
allowed;  and  they  could  n't  very  well  sit  down  at 
them  tables  because  the  pipes  was  gurgling  and 
googling  so  that  you  could  n't  tell  when  they  was 
going  to  cough  up  more.  Only  place  to  go  was 
down  in  the  hold  again ;  but  that  was  kind  of  risky 
because  you  had  to  go  forward  by  the  boilers  to  get 
down  there  and  the  mate  was  standing  in  the  bows. 
But  one  at  a  time  they  sneaked  up  the  hogways  and 
stole  behind  the  boilers  when  he  was  n't  looking; 
and  that  way  they  all  got  down.  Well,  the  clerk 
he  stepped  out  over  the  boilers  and  when  he  looked 
down  and  seen  what  they  was  doing  he  started  to 
laugh.  That  kind  of  made  me  mad ;  and  I  says  to 
myself,  "What  is  that  clerk  laughing  about?"  It 
might  'a'  been  funny  when  them  chickens  went 
over,  but  this  was  too  much.  It  's  funny  how  some 
people  can  laugh  at  other  people  having  bad  luck ; 
and  there  ain't  nothing  funny  about  that.  Suppose 
HIS  Fourth  of  July  come  along  and  he  lost  all  his 
firecrackers  and  then  his  powder  got  wet  and  his 
punk  would  n't  burn  and  then  he  got  some  old 
cheap  powder  and  then  did  n't  have  110  place  to 
shoot  it ;  how  would  HE  feel  ?  I  sort  of  felt  bad 
for  them  niggers  sitting  down  there  on  bags  and 
barrels  with  their  plates  on  their  laps— except  them 
that  spilled  it  and  did  n't  have  none.  They  forgot 


106  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

the  molasses  can,  so  I  took  it  down  and  passed  it 
around.  That  pork  was  n't  half  done  either;  and 
they  just  sat  down  and  found  fault,  and  ate  some 
hominy  and  looked  sour. 

"I  jes'  wish  we  would  run  'longside  anothah 
island,"  says  the  big  tall  nigger. 

"I  does,  too,"  says  the  little  tenor.  "I  wish't 
we  was  'MANCIPATED  f 'om  dis  heah  BOAT." 

Gr  is  wold  he  was  getting  worse  and  drove  them 
like  all  fury  at  the  landings.  But  that  ain't  no 
thing.  They  don't  mind  just  that— because  that  's 
regular.  When  a  lot  of  niggers  gets  to  trotting  all 
together  in  line  there  's  got  to  be  someone  standing 
'longside  whooping  her  up  and  cussing  different 
ones  and  making  things  lively;  then  it  's  steam- 
boating  and  they  all  take  an  interest.  That  's  part 
of  the  business  and  makes  it  important,  and  they 
would  feel  lost  if  the  mate  did  n't  run  it  like  it 
ought  to  be.  Griswold  always  sailed  right  in  and 
was  a  good  mate  because  he  was  a  bad  man ;  but  this 
day  there  was  something  different  about  it.  You 
could  see  it  sticking  right  out  of  his  eye  and  hear  it 
sharper  in  his  voice.  When  he  cussed  and  fetched 
anybody  a  clip  he  MEANT  it.  This  was  n't  regular 
nigger-driving  at  all.  And  you  bet  they  began  to 
see  it  and  was  afraid  of  him. 

Well,  I  come  up  from  the  hold  by  way  of  the  bows 
and  when  I  looked  up  toward  the  pilot-house  there 
was  Valdes  standing  up  on  the  edge  of  the  deck 
right  over  the  boilers,  looking  down  on  Griswold. 
And  there  was  Griswold  standing  in  the  bows, 
looking  straight  ahead.  And  Valdes  was  looking 


TROUBLE  DOES  SOME  MORE  BREWING  107 


Valdes  looking  down1' 


down  on  him  like  a  hawk  that  was  thinking  of  the 
time  when  he  would  swoop  down  and  nab  him. 
Well,  it  looked  to  me  as  if  all  them  accidents  was  n't 
nothing;  but  something  was  likely  to  happen  on 
that  trip  yet.  It  beat  me  why  he  just  sat  around 
cool  in  the  cabin  or  come  up  and  took  another  look 
at  Griswold  that  way  without  pitching  into  him. 
I  thinks  to  myself,  "Maybe  he  's  one  of  the  kind 
that  gathers  it  up  inside  of  themselves  like  them 
exhaust-pipes."  Whenever  that  kind  gets  ready 
to  let  it  out  somebody  better  stand  from  under. 
But  it  was  too  deep  for  me;  so  I  kept  my  mouth 


108  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

shut  about  what  I  knew  and  waited.    I  did  n't  like 
Griswold  anyhow. 

When  I  got  back  to  the  kitchen  again  Aunt 
Jemima  was  coming  out  with  a  tub  and  nothing  in 
it  but  my  shirt. 

"You  go  up  to  de  office,  Honey,  an'  say  to  de 
cap'n  dat  Aunt  Jemima  's  gwine  wash.  An'  she 
want  to  know  has  he  got  anyfing  he  want  to  put 
in." 

"You  need  n't  bother  about  THAT  shirt,"  I 
says.  '  *  That  shirt  's  pretty  near  clean. ' ' 

"Look  heah,  chile.  See  dat  footstep  on  yo' 
bosom?— does  yo'  see  dat?  You  fink  I  's  gwine 
hab  folks  see  you  in  dat  down  in  Madison  City. 
You  hesh  up  an '  go  on  now. ' ' 

I  seen  it  was  n't  no  use.  So  before  I  went  T 
looked  up  toward  the  pilot-house  to  see  if  the  Cap 
tain  had  gone  up  there  yet.  He  ought  to  'a'  been 
up  there  by  this  time,  standing  around  to  find  out 
if  Lang  would  say  something  funny  about  things. 
He  was  used  to  having  things  done  for  him  like 
that.  He  was  so  used  to  having  somebody  to  do 
everything  that  he  would  n't  even  take  the  trouble 
to  see  a  joke  for  hisself. 

It  ain't  nothing  to  be  a  river  captain.  He  's  got 
the  pilot  to  steer  for  him  and  the  clerk  to  add  for 
him  and  the  cook  to  cook  for  him  and  the  mate  to 
cuss  for  him  and  everybody  to  do  everything. 
Some  's  big  and  some  's  little— but  that  don't  make 
no  difference— and  ours  was  big  and  fat.  If  any 
thing  happened  he  would  just  smile  and  put  it  off 
till  Lang  would  say  it  right  to  laugh  at.  They 


TROUBLE  DOES  SOME  MORE  BREWING  109 

thought  Lang  was  awful  funny.  You  see  he  was 
always  up  there  by  himself  or  standing  with  his 
back  to  folks  in  the  pilot-house  a-listening  and  say 
ing  nothing.  And  when  he  got  it  all  boiled  down 
what  they  was  talking  to  each  other  about  he  would 
chip  in  and  say  it  off  quick  so  it  would  n't  take 
time  from  his  steering.  And  it  would  be  short  and 
funny. 

But  all  a  captain  has  to  do  is  to  be  aboard  and 
show  himself  around  and  then  everything  goes 
right.  He  could  boss  anybody  if  he  wanted  to— 
except  the  pilot.  The  pilot  he  knows  the  river  and 
the  captain  he  knows  the  shore  and  everybody  that 
lives  on  it ;  so  there  is  n't  anything  left  for  him  to 
do  but  be  sociable  with  everybody.  He  knows  how 
to  talk  to  farmers  and  they  are  all  glad  to  tell 
him  about  the  crops  and  be  acquainted  with  the 
captain  of  a  boat ;  and  the  passengers  sit  at  the 
table  and  talk  to  him  and  they  feel  safe  when  they 
know  the  captain;  and  the  city  men  down  at  St. 
Louis  slap  him  on  the  back  and  call  him  Cap.  And 
he  gets  to  feeling  sociable  with  everybody  because 
you  see  we  did  n't  belong  to  no  place  in  particular. 
Only  them  ocean  boats  that  go  away  out  of  sight 
of  land  and  get  away  from  home  where  there  is 
foreigners  belongs  to  some  place  and  has  the  town 
painted  on  the  stern  so  that  strangers  will  know 
what  government  is  looking  out  for  them.  But 
pshaw!  that  would  n't  work  on  the  river  boat; 
they  've  got  to  belong  to  all  them  towns.  Why,  dif 
ferent  towns  would  bring  important  visitors  down 
to  see  us,  and  if  the  Speed  was  n't  in  they  would 


110  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

apologize.  They  counted  us  in  for  a  piece  of  the 
town  same  as  the  main  factory— only  we  had  a 
license  to  run  up  and  down.  We  belonged  to  all 
of  them;  and  the  captain  the  same.  He  did  n't  go 
off  to  no  .foreign  countries.  That  boat  could  n't 
a  belonged  to  one  town  no  more  than  a  freight-train 
could.  And  the  captain  run  up  and  down  through 
everybody's  property  so  much— and  him  always  at 
home  and  people  looking  up  to  him— that  it  was 
like  owning  the  shore.  You  see  a  river  captain  is 
a  kind  of  a  sailor  and  a  farmer  and  a  hotel-keeper 
all  mixed  up ;  and  he  gets  to  feeling  that  way  and 
knows  a  good  joke  when  visitors  tell  it.  But  the  main 
thing  is  just  to  be  Cap;  and  when  he  ain't  being 
sociable  with  folks  he  can  just  sit  around  and  be  it. 
When  I  went  in  the  office  the  clerk  said  the  cap 
tain  had  just  stepped  out.  Then  I  heard  his  foot 
steps  overhead  and  I  thinks  to  myself,  "He  is  going 
up  now  to  hear  what  Lang  has  been  thinking  up 
about  things."  In  about  a  minute  I  heard  him 
start  to  cackle  like  a  hen  that  just  laid  an  egg. 
When  the  captain  laughed  the  clerk  stopped  writ 
ing  and  started  to  snigger.  I  asked  him  what  He 
was  laughing  about.  He  said  that  Lang  must  'a' 
got  off  some  kind  of  a  funny  joke.  I  asked  him 
what  it  was  and  he  said  he  did  n't  know  but  he 
guessed  he  'd  find  out  at  supper-time.  He  was 
kind  o.f  foolish  that  way.  There  's  a  lot  of  people 
that  when  they  get  to  thinking  a  person  's  funny 
they  start  right  in  and  laugh  as  soon  as  he  opens 
his  mouth;  and  if  it  ain't  no  good  they  '11  think 
maybe  it  is  and  laugh  anyway.  He  was  that  way ; 


TROUBLE  DOES  SOME  MORE  BREWING  111 

and  sometimes  he  'd  even  laugh  at  what  I  'd  say 
when  I  knew  it  was  n't  a  joke  at  all.  He  used  to 
write  a  good  deal  of  credit  for  shippers  till  I  guess 
he  got  to  thinking  everybody  was  honest  and  would 
pay ;  but  when  it  comes  to  laughing  at  people's  jokes 
that  way,  it  's  going  too  far.  I  told  him  so  and  he 
laughed.  Then  I  asked  him  if  he  thought  the  joke 
he  was  going  to  hear  was  maybe  as  funny  as  a 
nigger  losing  his  dinner— and  blamed  if  he  did  n't 
laugh  at  that.  I  never  could  make  him  out.  But 
you  'd  think  he  was  smart  to  see  him  writing  in  a 
book  all  the  time. 

When  I  got  up  to  the  pilot-house  the  captain 
and  the  pilot  was  smiling  and  saying  something 
about  Griswold  and  then  looking  sly  and  satisfied 
at  each  other  and  saying  some  more  about  how  the 
mate  had  his  war-paint  on  and  how  serious  he  was 
taking  it.  And  they  said  the  funniest  of  all  was  the 
way  he  sailed  into  them  at  the  landings,  and  then 
went  and  stood  as  solemn  as  a  graven  image  in  the 
bows  till  it  was  time  to  sail  into  them  again.  Then 
the  Captain  stood  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets  and 
give  the  pilot  a  kind  of  a  left-eyed  look  and  said 
Griswold  never  did  have  no  sense  of  humor  any 
ways.  But  he  said  he  was  the  best  mate  of  his 
inches  that  ever  come  up  them  waters  and  the 
whole  business  started  on  account  of  that  blame 
tub  of  chickens.  I  stood  around  and  listened  till 
Aunt  Jemima  come  out  below  and  hollered  up 
whether  I  was  taking  time  to  make  the  captain's 
shirts.  So  then  I  asked  him  about  it  and  went 
down  and  told  her.  She  said  it  took  me  awful  long. 


112  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

"Well,"  I  says  to  myself,  "they  think  they  know 
a  good  joke  when  they  don't;  and  the  real  part  of 
it  ain't  happened  yet."  Anybody  ought  to  'a'  seen 
that.  What  ailed  Griswold  was  n't  just  that  them 
niggers  was  a  little  slow.  It  was  something  else 
that  was  the  matter  inside  of  him  and  it  was  just 
working  out  that  way.  Valdes  he  was  sitting  in  the 
cabin  now,  cleaning  his  finger-nails  and  getting 
ready  to  do  nobody-knows-what ;  and  I  bet  if  he 
ever  started  in,  Griswold  would  n't  be  doing  none 
of  his  steamboat-mating  with  him.  But  I  did  n't 
say  nothing;  I  did  n't  want  to  get  mixed  up  in  it. 

Things  run  along  about  that  way  all  afternoon — 
landings  the  same  as  ever.  Towards  dusk  I  found 
out  we  were  going  to  turn  back  that  night  at  Ben 
der's  freight-house.  That  Osage  trip  had  taken 
up  some  time  and  we  must  get  back  to  St.  Louis 
when  we  were  due.  And  then  something  else  come 
out.  When  Preston— he  was  the  night  pilot  and  had 
a  full  license— was  going  up  to  take  the  wheel  the 
captain  met  him  and  slapped  him  hearty  on  the  back. 

"Well,  Preston,  how  would  you  feel  about  mak 
ing  a  try  for  that  gold  eagle  for  the  pilot-house?" 

"All  right,"  says  Preston.  "Goin'  to  do  it  now, 
Cap?" 

"Guess  this  is  a  good  time.  Griswold  's  on  his 
ear  and  he  '11  make  things  hum;  he  just  feels  like 
it.  Well,  I  '11  get  young  pig  and  postpone  Fourth 
of  July  till  to-morrow  and  let  them  hungry  nig 
gers  know  it;  they  '11  all  get  busier  than  ever  and 
Griswold  will  keep  them  going.  We  '11  make 
quick  time  at  landings.  This  is  the  time  to  do  it." 


V   * 

"  Coin'  to  do  it  now,  Cap  ? 


113 


114  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

"Guess  you  've  got  it  figured  out— so  let  her  go," 
says  Preston ;  and  he  went  up  the  stairs. 

"Gee  whillikins!"  I  says;  and  when  the  Captain 
was  gone  into  the  cabin  I  stood  on  my  hands  up 
against  the  kitchen  and  thinks  to  myself,  "We  are 
going  to  bust  the  record. ' ' 

Them  elevator  men  was  certainly  hogs  for  wheat ; 
and  they  liked  the  old  Speed  because  she  could 
shove  it  down.  And  I  bet  they  'd  be  surprised 
when  we  come  down  to  St.  Louis  with  last  Fourth 
of  July  all  busted  to  pieces.  They  said  we  could  n't 
beat  that  record  for  a  gold  eagle.  That  's  why  we 
was  going  to  do  it.  While  I  was  thinking  how  we 
would  do  it,  some  one  come  out  of  the  gangway 
again,  and  it  was  the  Captain;  so  I  come  down  on 
my  feet  again  and  stood  right. 

"Sammy,"  he  says  to  me,"  I  want  you  to  take 
three  or  four  of  the  niggers  and  go  away  back  to 
that  cross-roads  saloon  I  sent  you  to  one  time.  Tell 
the  man  I  want  four  good  shoats.  You  can  take 
each  of  you  one  of  Bender's  wheat  sacks  to  carry 
them  in." 

He  started  away  and  I  was  just  going  to  finish 
doing  it  when  he  come  back. 

*  *  And  Sammy, ' '  he  says,  * '  when  you  're  bringing 
the  shoats  aboard  make  them  squeal  some  so  that 
they  '11  all  hear  them  and  know  what's  in  the  bags. 
Let  everybody  know  they  're  THERE." 

"All  right,  Captain,"  I  says.  "You  bet  I  '11 
make  my  pig  squeal." 

' '  I  guess  I  can  depend  on  you  for  that, ' '  he  says ; 
and  this  time  he  went  up  the  stairs. 


CHAPTER  IX 


THE  PIGS  AND  THEIR  PURPOSE 

E  stuck  our  flambeau  into 
the  bank  at  Bender's 
about  ten  o'clock  that 
night;  and  right  away  I 
took  three  niggers  with 
wheat  sacks  and  a  lan 
tern  and  started  out  with 
the  money  in  my  hip 
pocket.  I  told  them  nig 
gers  to  keep  a-moving 
because  we  did  n't  have 
much  time ;  and  I  thinks 
to  myself,  "We  've  got  a  good  deal  of  time,  because 
this  is  the  turn."  We  'd  have  to  unload  and  load 
both  and  that  would  give  us  double  time.  Besides 
that  I  heard  the  engineer  say  to  the  captain  that 
there  was  a  tarnation  of  mud  in  things  and  it 
would  n't  do  till  it  was  tended  to;  so  I  guessed 
they  would  be  fooling  with  the  doctor  and  maybe 
blow  off  the  boilers  some  and  try  to  get  things 
right;  and  anyway  they  would  n't  start  again  till 
they  had  the  old  safety-valve  a-sputtering  and  that 
would  maybe  give  me  more  time. 

115 


116  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 


Going  for  the  shoats 

I  would  like  to  a-seen  inside  of  them  boilers. 
The  old  one  that  did  n't  go  up  when  the  other  blew 
out  her  man-hole  had  more  scale  in  it  than  there 
was  ashes  in  the  fire-box,  I  heard.  The  fellow  said 
so  that  took  away  the  pieces.  I  bet  there  was  too. 
So  we  pegged  out  along  a  kind  of  a  wagon  track 
across  the  open,  with  the  tall  nigger  ahead  carrying 
the  lantern  so  we  could  see  a  couple  of  ruts  to  go  by. 

After  a  while  that  road  faded  plum  out  on  the 
grass.  We  went  on  and  walked  to  one  side  and 
then  the  other,  and  then  round  and  round  to  find 
where  it  started  in  again;  but  we  did  n't  find  it 
and  the  only  thing  was  we  got  our  direction  all 
mixed  up. 

"This  won't  do  at  all,"  I  says.  "We  've  got  to 
start  in  right  and  go  straight  ahead,  road  or  no 
road,  and  take  her  as  she  comes." 

And  then  blame  if  we  did  n't  have  to  hunt  all 
over  to  find  where  we  was  before.  I  seen  it  was 
getting  mighty  serious,  because,  you  see,  if  I  did  n't 


THE  PIGS  AND  THEIR  PURPOSE  117 

get  them  shoats  the  whole  business  would  n't  work 
that  they  was  getting  ready  for,  and  we  would  n't 
bust  that  Fourth  of  July  record.  And  the  captain 
was  depending  on  me. 

"This  here  kind  of  business  won't  do  at  all," 
I  says.  So  then  I  counted  them  niggers— but  I 
can't  see  niggers  very  well  in  the  dark— and  I  told 
them  to  follow  me  while  I  circled  round  and  zig 
zagged  till  I  found  where  we  was.  Pretty  soon 
I  found  where  it  left  off  and  got  started  again ;  so 
then  I  piloted  straight  ahead  with  the  lantern  and 
stuck  to  the  middle  of  the  road  where  it  ought  to  be. 

After  a  while  I  seen  a  light  away  off  to  the  right 
about  as  big  as  a  lightning  bug ;  and  I  says  to  my 
self,  "We  '11  go  over  there,  because  no  decent 
people  don't  stay  up  this  late  at  night,  and  maybe 
it  's  a  saloon. ' '  It  was  a  long  distance  to  go  out  of 
the  way,  but  you  've  got  to  take  your  chances. 
And  anyway  whoever  was  sitting  up  there  could 
tell  me  where  the  saloon  was. 

Well,  that  was  the  place.  The  boss  was  sitting 
up  playing  cards  with  a  couple  of  old  loafers ;  and 
when  he  heard  us  coming  after  ten  o  'clock  at  night, 
and  seen  us  with  bags  on  our  arms,  he  jumped  up 
like  he  thought  it  was  the  James  gang  coming  to 
clean  him  out.  But  when  I  showed  him  the  money 
and  started  to  talk  business  he  changed  right  over 
and  was  polite. 

We  made  an  awful  surprise  inside  that  pig-pen 
with  the  lantern;  but  the  tall  nigger  and  the  boss 
caught  three  likely  shoats  by  the  hind  legs  and 
dropped  them  head  foremost  into  the  sacks  and  tied 


\  \ 

\ 
When  1  showed  him  the  money  he  changed  right  over" 


THE  PIGS  AND  THEIR  PURPOSE         119 

them  up.  It  's  the  only  way  you  can  get  the  best 
of  a  pig.  The  Captain  had  told  me  to  get  four ;  so 
I  guessed  I  would  take  a  smaller  sized  one  out  of 
the  other  litter  because  I  could  n't  manage  such 
big  ones.  "Give  me  one  a  couple  of  sizes  smaller," 
I  says.  He  got  me  one;  and  I  would  n't  take  it  at 
first  because  I  thinks  to  myself,  "He  is  trying  to 
work  off  the  runt  on  me."  And  I  told  him  so. 
But  he  said  he  would  n't  try  that  on  me  and  he 
showed  me  a  little  peaked-nosed  pig  over  in  the 
corner  that  was  one  too  many  for  its  mother  and 
did  n't  have  no  place  at  her;  so  it  always  got 
crowded  away  and  had  to  come  and  take  the  leav 
ings—which  there  was  n't  any.  So  when  I  seen 
how  fat  and  healthy  mine  was  beside  him  I  seen 
mine  was  no  runt  at  all.  So  I  took  him. 

When  we  got  back  to  the  saloon  and  I  finished 
up  the  bargain  and  counted  out  the  money,  the 
saloon-keeper  seen  I  was  the  boss ;  and  he  asked  me 
what  would  I  have  to  drink.  So  I  stood  up  to  the 
bar  and  said  I  would  take  some  Missouri  peach 
brandy  in  a  saucer  and  burned  off  with  a  match. 
That  's  good  for  a  cold.  I  did  n  't  have  no  cold  but 
that  's  what  I  always  drink.  When  I  blowed  off 
the  fire  and  drunk  it  down,  them  niggers  looked  dis 
couraged  and  got  glummer  than  when  they  lost 
the  chicken.  So  I  recommended  to  the  boss  that  he 
better  give  them  some  gin  if  he  wanted  me  to  come 
here  for  shoats  again.  He  did  n't  want  to  give 
nothing  to  no  niggers;  but  I  told  him  this  was 
Emancipation  Day  for  white  folks  and  niggers  both 
and  they  had  n't  had  nothing;  and,  besides,  we 


120  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

was  going  to  bust  the  record  and  them  niggers  was 
mighty  important,  and  things  must  start  in  to  going 
right.  Well,  when  he  found  it  was  a  steamboat 
race  he  perked  right  up  and  out  with  a  whole  bottle 
of  gin  and  wanted  to  get  up  a  bet  with  the  other 
two  fellows  about  it;  and  they  up  and  out  with 
their  money.  He  followed  me  outside  and  whis 
pered  to  me ;  and  I  told  him  he  could  put  his  money 
on  us  because  when  the  Speed  laid  out  to  do  a  thing 
she  wras  a-going  to  do  it ;  and  then  I  had  to  shake 
hands  and  be  hiking  out  of  there. 

We  went  along  through  the  dark  with  the  pigs 
kicking  and  squealing  in  the  bags ;  me  carrying 
the  lantern  on  my  arm,  with  the  niggers  following 
in  line  just  like  I  said.  They  carried  their  shoats 
on  their  backs,  with  the  ends  of  the  bags  over  their 
shoulders,  and  I  did  too ;  but  mine  was  always 
trying  to  run  up  me.  He  kicked  and  scratched  my 
back  so  much  that  I  took  him  in  my  arms  and 
hugged  him  around  the  middle,  with  his  legs  to  the 
front;  and  that  way  he  kicked  out  into  the  air; 
but  he  kept  rassling  round  and  trying  to  run.  Once 
he  got  the  best  of  me  and  I  fell  down  and  he  tried 
to  run  with  me  on  top  of  him.  But  he  did  n't  run 
far  in  the  bag ;  he  just  fell  round  this  way  and  that 
with  the  bag  flopping  every-which-way  like  a 
chicken  with  its  head  chopped  off;  and  he  could  n't 
get  nowheres;  so  I  grabbed  him  up  and  got  him 
tight  again. 

When  I  went  down  the  lantern  went  out;  but 
that  did  n't  make  no  difference  as  long  as  there 
was  n't  no  road  to  go  by;  I  just  kept  the  light  of 


THE  PIGS  AND  THEIR  PURPOSE          121 

the  saloon  off  to  the  point  where  it  was  when  we 
first  saw  it  like  a  gover'ment  light;  and  that  was 
enough  to  steer  by.  The  pig  squirmed  and  twisted ; 
and  then  he  kicked  me  a  good  one  right  in  the  face 
and  I  went  down ;  and  from  the  direction  he  kicked 
I  knew  what  my  mistake  was— I  had  been  carrying 
him  upside  down.  So  I  got  him  again  and  felt 
careful  which  end  his  head  was  on  and  then  I  car 
ried  him  right  side  up  like  you  'd  ought  to  carry 
a  baby;  and  that  way  I  kind  of  got  him  quieted 
down  and  feeling  it  was  n't  no  use. 

When  that  saloon  light  was  so  far  away  it  went 
clean  out,  I  just  kept  right  on  to  see  what  we  'd  run 
into;  because  you  Ve  mostly  got  to  take  your 
chances  anyways.  I  told  them  niggers  to  stick  to 
me;  and  after  a  while  I  saw  a  red  glare  shining 
away  off  over  the  edge  of  the  river  bank ;  and  that 
was  what  I  was  looking  for.  Well,  it  was  a  good 
thing  they  had  the  flambeau  out,  because  the  head 
light  ain't  no  good  to  find  a  steamboat  behind  a 
high  bank ;  it  don 't  shine  up ;  it  only  goes  in  a 
streak  and  lights  up  a  spot.  But  when  that  old 
iron  basket  was  all  full  of  pine,  and  blazing  and 
standing  up  on  its  iron  rod  that  was  socked  into  the 
bank,  it  was  a  bonfire  about  seven  feet  up  in  the 
air;  and  you  bet  that  shone  up  and  down  and  all 
around  and  lit  things  up  for  everybody. 

When  we  got  to  the  top  of  the  bank  the  last  of 
the  niggers  was  running  aboard  with  wheat  sacks 
on  their  shoulders;  and  the  old  safety-valve  was 
sputtering ;  and  the  Captain  was  atop  of  the  cabin 
looking  all  around;  and  the  wheel  was  fluttering 


122  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 


Bringing  in  the  shoats 

kind  of  impatient  while  the  engineer  tried  things 
slow  to  see  how  they  worked ;  and  the  exhaust-pipes 
were  heaving  breaths  so  long  and  deep  that  you  'd 
think  she  was  a-sighing  to  get  out  of  there  and  be 
off.  So  then  I  turned  my  pig  discomfortable  upside 
down  and  squeezed  him  under  my  arm;  and  we 


THE  PIGS  AND  THEIR  PURPOSE         123 

come  a-marching  down  the  bank  a-squealing  like  a 
whole  bagpiper  band— I  bet  I  could  'a'  played 
"The  Campbells  is  a-Coming"  on  my  pig;  he  was 
a  good  one— and  all  the  niggers  on  the  hogways 
looked  up  with  the  whites  of  their  eyes  all  thankful 
and  smiling  like  we  was  bringing  help.  So  we  come 
up  the  staging  and  across  the  hogways  and  the 
staging  began  to  lift  and  she  began  to  move.  Then 
we  was  going  to  soon  be  started. 

We  started  slow  up-stream  and  circled  round  on 
the  down  course.  Bender  himself  was  standing  on 
the  bank  with  a  lantern  and  a  watch  in  his  hand; 
and  he  swung  the  lantern  to  us  and  yelled 
' t  Yahoo ! ' '  and  the  bell  went  dingle-dangle  down  in 
the  engine-room  and  then  she  began  to  thump  her 
up  behind.  She  started  in  like  a  horse  with  the 
heaves,  and  the  moon  began  to  sail. 

I  went  and  stood  up  on  top  near  the  Captain; 
and  by  that  time  she  was  going  all  over  and  full 
of  it  from  end  to  end  like  an  old  speed  factory 
just  started  up  to  turn  it  out  steady  all  night  long ; 
and  only  from  the  feeling  of  it  you  would  n  't  know 
you  was  going  much  except  you  seen  something 
ashore.  The  moon  ain't  very  satisfactory  except 
you  get  the  edge  of  a  bluff  right  on  the  rim  of  her 
—then  she  rolls  along  lively;  but  once  in  a  while 
I  'd  see  a  farm-house  where  they  was  up  late  mov 
ing  through  the  trees ;  and  then  sometimes  a  white 
washed  post  with  a  gover'ment  light  would  be 
nearer  and  go  faster ;  and  sometimes  an  old  dead 
white  cottonwood  tree  would  go  hurrying  through 
the  night  like  a  ghost  that  had  to  get  back  before 


124  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

the  graveyard  was  closed.  Pretty  soon  the  motion 
of  it  got  us  all  settled  down  and  warmed  up,  with 
everybody's  feelings  keeping  time  with  the  engines ; 
and  the  coonjiners  got  it  worked  into  them  and  be 
gan  to  roll  along  with  the  fancy  motions  and  sing : 

De  Lord  tole  Noah  to  build  him  an  old  ark; 
De  ole  ark  a-moverin',  a-moverin'  along— 
De  old  ark  a-moverin',  a-moverin7,  a  moverin'; 
De  ole  ark  a-moverin',  a-moverin'  along. 

Den  Noah  an'  his  sons  went  to  work  upon  de  dry  land  ; 
De  ole  ark  a-moverin',  a-moverin'  along — 
De  ole  ark  a-moverin',  a-moverin',  a-moverin', 
De  ole  ark  a-moverin',  a-moverin'  along. 

Den  Noah  an'  his  sons  went  to  work  upon  de  timber; 
De  ole  ark  a-moverin',  a-moverin'  along; 
De  ole  ark  a-moverin',  a-moverin',  a-moverin', 
De  ole  ark  a-moverin',  a-moverin'  along. 

Well,  that  song  has  more  to  it  than  you  'd  think, 
unless  you  sung  it  along  twenty  or  thirty  miles; 
and  it  's  longer  than  from  Booneville  to  St.  Louis, 
but  the  words  is  easy  to  learn.  After  them  two 
coonjiners  started  they  got  to  going  in  the  hold- 
music  is  awful  catching  among  niggers— and  then 
all  them  laying  around  on  the  wheat  down  there, 
with  nothing  to  do  but  put  their  feet  up  and  think 
of  the  Fourth  coming  special  to-morrow,  starts  to 
chip  in ;  and  then  the  whole  load  of  them,  from  the 
tall  fellow  that  sung  bass  down  to  the  little  freckled 
tenor,  was  a-going: 


THE  PIGS  AND  THEIR  PURPOSE         125 

De  proud  began  to  laugh  an'  de  silly  pint  der  finger; 
De  ole  ark  a-moverhr,  a-moverin'  along j 
De  ole  ark  a-moverin',  a-moverin',  a-moverin', 
De  ole  ark  a-moverin',  a-moverin'  along. 

That  's  the  way  that  night  started  up,  with  the 
coonjiners  shuffling  along  like  they  was  the  whole 
machinery,  and  the  wheel  keeping  time  with  them, 
and  the  headlight  shining  out  before,  and  the  pipes 
a-blowing,  and  the  furnaces  shooting  the  red  glare 
out  over  the  bows  into  the  night  with  the  firemen 
stripped  to  the  waist  as  black  as  coal  and  throwing 
it  into  the  fire-boxes,  and  Griswold  standing  stern 
in  the  red  firelight  like  a  little  devil  in  a  hell  of  his 
own  with  the  iron  doors  clanging  open  and  shut. 

It  did  n't  seem  no  time  at  all  till  we  made  the 
next  landing.  The  whistle  blowed  and  the  bell 
rang  and  the  singing  shut  off  like  the  engineer  had 
stopped  it  when  he  slowed  the  wheel ;  and  when  we 
had  gone  far  enough  below  that  landing  we  circled 
round  and  came  up  to  it  just  so.  You  see  on  the 
Missouri  you  Ve  got  to  make  a  landing  with  your 
nose  up-stream  no  matter  which  direction  you  're 
running ;  it  has  a  current  and  ain  't  like  them  poky 
rivers.  And  with  your  flat  stern  and  the  big  wheel 
behind  it's  better  to  turn  tail  and  let  it  stop  you 
and  come  up  against  it  with  the  bows  than  to  try 
to  fight  it  out  by  reversing  the  engines.  Then  you 
tie  up  with  your  bow  splitting  the  current  and  it 
ain't  so  hard  on  the  ropes  nor  nothing. 

While  we  was  making  the  turn  Griswold  yapped 
out  like  a  terrier  in  the  hold ;  and  all  them  niggers 


126  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

jumped  up  from  the  wheat  sacks  and  landed  on 
their  feet  in  a  jiffy;  and  before  we  touched  the 
bank  he  had  them  woke  up  to  business  till  they  was 
marking  time  all  in  a  line  and  walking  on  one  spot 
because  there  was  no  place  to  go  to.  But  when 
that  gang-plank  struck  shore  there  was  a  place  to 


Griswold  took  his  place  with  the  barrel-stave" 


THE  PIGS  AND  THEIR  PURPOSE         127 

go  to  and  you  bet  they  went.  Two  of  the  niggers 
ran  out  with  the  flambeau  burning  like  a  two-man 
torch  and  rammed  her  into  the  dirt ;  and  then  you 
could  see  that  file  of  niggers  chasing  past  it  like  a 
procession  on  a  theater  stage  that  never  has  no  end 
to  it.  Griswold  took  his  place  with  the  barrel 
stave  and  turned  himself  loose  the  worst  I  ever  saw. 
There  was  the  torch  on  one  side  with  the  pine-knots 
going  like  red  tongues  licking  the  night,  and  there 
was  Griswold  on  the  other  side  doing  all  the  cuss 
ing  he  could  lay  tongue  to— and  I  guess  one  of  them 
could  n't  'a'  made  it  any  warmer  for  them  than 
the  other ;  he  was  pretty  fiery.  No  matter  how  they 
hustled,  Griswold  could  n't  get  it  out  of  his  head 
that  they  was  slow;  and  it  was  like  running  the 
gauntlet  the  way  them  two  files  passed  each  other- 
one  loaded  and  the  other  empty— and  pouring  that 
wheat  aboard  like  the  endless  chain  in  the  elevator. 
We  did  n't  fool  long  at  that  landing.  When  the 
last  sack  was  coming  aboard  the  bonfire  was  pushed 
over  and  soused  in  the  river;  and  then  the  flam 
beau  clattered  on  deck  with  the  rope  after  it,  and 
the  staging  come  up  and  the  bell  rung  in  the 
engine-room,  and  we  circled  round  and  pelted  on 
again  towards  St.  Louis.  The  niggers  was  all  feel 
ing  fine. 

We  ran  along  low,  undercut  shore  for  a  while 
and  then  we  made  the  crossing  over  to  the  face  of 
the  high  bluffs  on  the  other  side,  where  the  channel 
followed  the  flat  wall  and  scooted  along.  That  's 
what  I  like ;  you  can  see  how  you  are  going.  When 
a  wall  like  that  is  going  past  three  or  four  feet 


128  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

away  and  you  are  holding;  her  to  it  to  catch  every 
inch  of  the  current,  and  the  headlight  is  racing 
along  it  and  you  are  putting  the  speed  on  top  of  a 
five-mile  current,  then  you  can  see  you  are  going 
some.  You  look  at  the  Avail  for  a  mile  or  so  right 
before  your  eyes  and  it  is  like  running  a  race  down 
in  the  deep  locks  of  a  canal ;  them  Missouri  walls 
is  straight  up  and  down.  And  Preston  could  hold 
her  to  it ;  he  was  good. 

Well,  it  was  getting  pretty  late,  but  I  did  n't  feel 
like  going  to  bed  that  night,  somehow.  Griswold 
was  staying  right  up,  tending  to  things,  and  the 
Captain  was  up  yet.  And  blame  if  that  school  pro 
fessor  was  n't  up  and  walking  up  and  down  on  top 
of  the  cabin  like  he  had  to  be  on  watch  too.  I  went 
and  sat  on  a  trestle  on  the  engine-house,  because 
that  's  where  I  like  it  best  to  feel  things  a-going. 
That  school  professor  seemed  to  be  just  itching  to 
talk  and  be  company  with  somebody  that  belonged 
on  the  boat  and  had  done  it  before.  But  all  of  them 
had  things  to  tend  to  without  talking  to  him. 

At  last  he  turns  and  comes  down  on  the  engine- 
house  and  I  could  see  that  he  was  coming  to  ask 
me  questions  and  I  would  have  to  be  saying  No  to 
everything  he  said.  He  sit  down  on  the  trestle 
with  me  and  made  up  to  me  and  wanted  to  know  if 
this  boat  had  ever  done  this  before  and  was  she  a 
good  boat  and  a  lot  of  stuff.  And  I  told  him  No, 
we  would  n't  blow  up  or  strike  a  snag  or  a  sawyer 
or  run  onto  a  sand  bar  or  anything  unless  it  wras  an 
accident,  and  what  was  the  use  of  talking  about 
that ;  who  can  help  an  accident  ?  Anyways,  Preston 


THE  PIGS  AND  THEIR  PURPOSE         129 

knew  the  channel.  Then  he  got  to  talking  about  the 
river  and  what  Preston  knew,  and  I  seen  he  wanted 
me  to  talk  and  be  sociable  with  him  for  company. 

"It  's  a  very  crooked  river  and  swift,"  he  says. 
"I  suppose  its  crookedness  makes  it  hard  to  re 
member  and  dangerous.  And  I  hear  that  it  shifts 
its  bed,  travelling  sideways  sometimes." 

"Pshaw!"  I  says,  "that  ain't  half  of  its  crook^ 
edness.  Anybody  could  see  that  crookedness  just 
by  looking. ' ' 

"What  other  crookedness  is  there ?"  he  says. 
' l  And  does  n  't  the  pilot  go  by  looking  ? ' ' 

I  seen  he  did  n't  know  nothing. 

' '  Well, ' '  I  says,  ' '  seeing  you  don 't  know  nothing 
I  '11  tell  you  all  about  the  river.  Some  rivers  knows 
some  tricks  and  other  rivers  knows  others,  but  the 
Missouri  knows  the  whole  business  and  does  it. 
This  part  of  the  river  used  to  be  about  a  mile  over 
there  where  there  's  farms;  and  there  used  to  be 
farms  right  here  where  we  're  running— that  's 
how  she  shifts  sideways  sometimes.  And  sometime 
she  might  go  back  again  if  she  don't  like  it  here. 
That  's  easy  enough  for  it  to  do,  because  the  banks 
is  awful  crumbly  where  there  ain't  rock  ridges. 
It  eats  under  them,  and  when  the  bank  is  all  hollow 
underneath  and  can't  support  its  weight  no  more 
it  breaks  away  and  falls  in  with  a  noise  about  like 
an  elephant.  She  's  always  doing  it  one  place  and 
another — takes  it  away  somewheres  else  if  it  needs 
it ;  and  if  it  don 't  she  takes  it  down  and  drops  it  in 
to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  and  chokes  up  the  Mississippi. 
That  's  why  she  's  called  the  Big  Muddy.  But  how 

9 


"I  seen  he  did  n't  know  nothing"1 


130 


THE  PIGS  AND  THEIR  PURPOSE         131 

she  works  it— that  is  a  different  thing.  I  '11  tell 
you  how  she  works  it.  Then  you  '11  see  what  the 
pilot  's  got  to  get  by  heart  and  then  forget.  The 
bed  of  this  river  and  the  channel  of  it  is  two  dif 
ferent  things.  The  channel  is  just  the  deepest  and 
swiftest  part.  You  hear  people  say  that  still  water 
runs  deep;  but  that  ain't  so— never  was  so.  Deep 
water  is  the  swiftest,  because  the  top  water  slides 
along  on  the  water  below  and  it  can  naturally  run 
slicker  than  shallow  water  that  is  rubbing  along  on 
bottom.  This  river  is  shallow  where  it  looks  deep 
and  you  could  n  't  hardly  float  a  tub  on  it ;  and  the 
pilot  has  got  to  know  where  it  's  deep  enough  to 
go  up,  and  not  too  swift;  and  he  's  got  to  know 
where  it  's  good  and  swift  when  he  's  breaking  the 
Fourth  of  July  record  like  we  're  doing  down  river 
right  now.  To  look  at  it  some  people  would  think 
it  was  just  a  plain  river  running  along  in  its  bed 
at  the  same  speed— but  it  ain't.  The  river  runs 
crooked  through  the  valley ;  and  just  the  same  way 
the  channel  runs  crooked  through  the  river.  The 
river  changes  whenever  it  feels  like  it  in  the  valley ; 
and  just  the  same  the  channel  changes  whenever  it 
feels  like  it  in  the  river.  The  crookedness  you  can 
see  ain't  half  the  crookedness  there  is.  Some  rivers 
has  the  channel  right  down  the  middle ;  and  that  is 
the  deepest  and  swiftest  part.  But  this  river  ain't 
that  way.  Some  places  the  channel  runs  down  the 
middle;  and  some  places  it  flows  right  up  along 
one  shore  and  then  crosses  over  and  flows  along  the 
other  shore  a  while.  That  's  how  it  comes  to  be 
moving  sideways ;  and  the  way  it  works  it  you  can 


132  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

see  easy  when  I  tell  you.  This  channel  ain't  satis 
fied  with  nothing.  Sometimes  it  ain  't  satisfied  with 
the  Missouri.  So  it  keeps  eating  away  one  bank 
and  caving  it  in  and  hurrying  it  away  like  you 
think  it  was  going  to  break  out  sideways  and  start 
a  river  of  its  own.  It  would  too ;  but  the  Missouri 
is  too  wise  for  it;  it  won't  have  no  such  a  thing. 
When  the  channel  gets  right  over  to  shore  and  the 
main  waters  is  coming  deep  and  swift  and  working 
away,  the  shallower  water  on  the  other  side  is  going 
along  slower  and  thinking  to  itself  and  dropping 
down  the  mud  it  has  been  bringing  hundreds  of 
miles,  maybe.  It  says  to  itself,  'This  thing  has  got 
to  be  settled  right  here ' ;  so  it  settles  down  the  mud 
to  the  bottom.  That  way  it  keeps  building  up  one 
side ;  and  when  it  is  doing  that  it  kind  of  slides  side 
ways  on  it  and  builds  up  more ;  it  keeps  the  river 
about  the  same  width,  no  matter  how  fast  it  is  eating 
on  the  other  side.  I  guess  this  channel  would  'a' 
left  the  river  long  ago  only  the  river  follows  it  up 
and  is  too  blame  smart  for  it.  The  Missouri  is  a 
wise  old  river  and  it  knows  the  tricks— but  it  's  got 
a  shifty  channel  to  manage.  AVell,  when  that  chan 
nel  has  gone  sideways  a  while,  maybe  a  new  chan 
nel  gets  started  in  a  mushier  place  on  bottom ;  and 
when  that  is  getting  to  be  pretty  much  of  a  success 
the  main  waters  goes  there  to  help  a  good  thing 
along— same  as  people.  Then  the  old  channel  ain't 
doing  much  and  it  has  got  to  go  to  work  and  crawl 
back  and  build  up  where  it  tore  down— that  's  the 
way  it  is;  nothing  certain  about  it.  But  mostly 
when  she  has  struck  a  stone  bluff  the  waters  hurries 


133 


134  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

along  and  is  mad  about  it  and  stays  right  there, 
working  hard  and  swift.  That  's  why  we  are  cross 
ing  back  and  forth  to  the  bare  bluffs  so  much.  And 
when  we  go  over  the  river  that  way  it  's  a  crossing. 
Pshaw!  this  is  the  greatest  river  in  the  world  and 
the  wisest  river  there  is.  Some  rivers,  if  they 
did  n't  hit  the  trail  oftener  than  this  does, 
would  n  't  know  the  way  anywhere.  They  'd  get  so 
mixed  up  they  'd  start  emptying  into  themselves, 
I  guess.  But  you  would  n't  know  it  to  look  at  it; 
you  'd  think  it  was  just  a  plain  river  running  along 
between  its  banks. ' ' 

"I  see,"  he  says.  "And  the  pilot  has  got  to 
know  all  about  that  channel  besides  what  he  can 
see.  How  does  he  keep  track  of  it  so  it  's  safe— 
and  in  the  night  this  way  ? ' ' 

' '  Well,  he  knows  how  it  was ;  and  when  the  river 
changes  he  changes  his  mind.  He  watched  how  it 
was  when  he  come  up.  He  could  say  it  right  off 
for  hundreds  of  miles,  and  he  criss-crosses  back  and 
forth.  You  've  got  to  pay  as  close  attention  as  if 
you  was  reading  a  book.  And  when  you  're  in 
doubts  about  anything  it  makes  you  as  tired  of 
life  when  you  get  done  as  if  you  had  read  a  book 
clean  through.  Pshaw !  this  is  the  greatest  river 
in  the  known  world.  The  Mississippi  ain't  noth 
ing  till  this  river  comes  along  and  shows  it  the 
tricks.  The  Ohio  ain't  nothing.  It  's  short  and 
poky." 

Well,  he  up  and  says  maybe  I  was  prejidiced  and 
was  doing  some  boasting.  "Boasting  nothing,"  I 
says.  "Why,  the  Missouri  is  longer  than  the  Mis- 


THE  PIGS  AND  THEIR  PURPOSE         135 

sissippi  and  holds  more  water  and  shoots  it  along 
livelier.    It  's  bigger." 

"What!"  he  says.  "Think  of  the  Mississippi 
from  St.  Louis  to  the  Gulf— is  n't  that  bigger?" 

"What  kind  of  talk  is  that?"  I  says.  "Of 
course  it  is  if  you  're  going  to  add  the  Missouri  and 
count  it  IN.  What  's  the  Mississippi  by  itself? 
The  Missouri  comes  out  above  St.  Louis  over  three 
thousand  miles  long;  and  there  comes  the  Missis 
sippi  just  a  little  over  half  that  long  and  it  only  a 
stream— clear  and  slow;  a  regular  country  stream. 
Then  the  Missouri  sails  in  and  shows  it  the  tricks 
and  broadens  it  out  and  makes  something  out  of 
it— and  you  are  going  to  count  THAT  in  for  the 
Mississippi.  But  s'pose  you  do;  I  '11  let  you.  The 
Mississippi  £oes  three  thousand  miles  from  its  head 
to  the  Gulf.  Well,  the  Missouri  is  a  LITTLE 
longer  than  that  before  it  ever  goes  into  partner 
ship  with  the  Mississippi.  You  think  it  's  awful 
far  to  go  twelve  hundred  miles  from  St.  Louis  to 
New  Orleans  without  changing  steamboats.  Why, 
when  this  boat  was  running  up  to  Fort  Benton— 
which  is  only  part  of  the  Missouri — it  beat  that  all 
hollow.  Take  the  Mississippi  with  the  Missouri 
water  in  it  and  it  's  three  thousand  miles  from  the 
top  end  to  the  Gulf.  Well,  the  Missouri,  from  its 
head  to  the  Gulf,  is  more  than  FOUR  thousand 
miles,  and  muddy  all  the  way.  Why,  the  Missouri 
beats  the  blame  Mississippi  and  the  Missouri  put 
TOGETHER." 

"I  see  what  you  mean, ' '  he  says,  and  he  drew  in 
his  horns. 


136  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

' '  You  bet, ' '  I  says.  ' i  I  know  all  about  it  because 
Preston  told  me  so.  By  rights  it  ain't  the  Mis 
sissippi  so  much  below  St.  Louis ;  it  's  the  Missouri. 
Going  by  the  muddy  water  it  's  the  Mississippi  that 
empties  into  the  Missouri— and  the  Missouri  don't 
get  no  wider  or  notice  it  so  much  either.  Why  the 
Missouri  won't  ASSOCIATE  with  the  Mississippi. 
You  take  it  all  along  after  it  empties  in;  there  's 
muddy  water  all  down  one  side  and  clear  water 
down  the  other— and  a  line  drawn  where  the  Mis 
souri  won't  have  nothing  to  do  with  it.  Why,  the 
Missouri  will  travel  all  over  the  land  here  and  mix 
up  with  dirt  and  be  mud ;  but  blamed  if  it  will  mix 
with  Mississippi  WATER.  But  of  course  after  a 
while  it  gets  used  to  it  and  mixes  up.  It  makes  it 
all  muddy  and  is  satisfied." 

Aunt  Jemima  was  sitting  up  yet,  because  it  was 
a  nice  summer  night  and  it  was  the  Fourth;  she 
brought  her  chair  out  and  sat  at  the  side  of  the 
pantry  and  kept  saying:  "Deedy,  yes,  chile"  to  all 
that  I  said  to  him.  So  I  guess  he  found  out  I  knew 
what  I  was  talking  about.  Anyways  he  give  up. 


CHAPTER  X 


THE  SPEED  HAS  A  RUN  FOR  HER  BACON 

'ELL,  I  got  so  busy  and 
was  so  interested  hearing 
myself  talk  to  him  that  I 
never  noticed  nothing  till 
we  was  past  them  bluffs 
and  made  a  turn;  and 
then  the  singing  all  shut 
up  and  things  was  quiet 
except  just  the  engines. 
And  when  I  noticed  it 
and  looked  up  there  was 
the  Muscoutah  not  two 
hundred  yards  away  and 
just  a  little  ahead  of  us.  We  had  caught  up  while 
she  was  fooling  at  a  landing,  and  when  she  come 
out  we  was  plum'  onto  her. 

All  our  niggers  quit  singing  and  come  out  onto 
the  port  hogway  and  stood  in  line  looking  over  at 
her.  Her  niggers  kept  leaking  out  onto  the  side 
towards  us  and  kept  looking  over  our  way.  I  seen 
their  captain  come  out  on  top  of  the  cabin  just  like 
he  was  taking  a  walk  that  evening ;  then  he  stopped 
by  the  bell  up  in  front  and  leaned  over  and  asked 
some  questions  to  them  down  at  the  boilers. 

137 


138  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

We  was  crawling  up  even  with  them,  slow  and 
sure.  They  were  going  pretty  good.  But  when  we 
had  got  about  nose  and  nose  with  them  we  did  n't 
seem  to  be  getting  ahead.  We  was  just  standing 


We  was  plum1  onto  her  " 


still.  We  could  n't  a-stood  no  stiller  if  we  was 
stuck  in  the  current  under  the  St.  Charles'  bridge 
and  could  n't  hardly  pull  out.  We  was  just  a  hun 
dred  yards  or  so  from  them  now— and  we  ought  to 
a-been  closer  to  get  the  current  right  because  the 
channel  was  n't  very  wide  there — and  we  was 
going  along  even  like  a  team  of  horses. 


THE  SPEED  HAS  A  RUN  FOR  HER  BACON  139 

But  we  was  n't  going  to  hurry  up  and  do  any 
trying  just  to  beat  that  boat.  This  was  n't  no 
race ;  what  's  the  sense  in  that  ?  We  just  saluted 
each  other  with  the  whistles— all  boats  is  polite  that 
way— but  our  captain  and  theirs  did  n't  take  no 
particular  notice  of  anything.  Only  we  was  n't 
going  to  let  them  beat  us  or  start  to  showing  us 
anything,  you  bet.  Who  would?  They  could  n't 
keep  up  to  us  anyway  if  we  ever  tried ;  I  heard  the 
Captain  say  so  more  than  once.  We  was  a  faster 
boat. 

Their  niggers  was  all  looking  over  at  ours,  and 
ours  was  all  looking  over  at  theirs  and  kind  of 
buzzing  together  like  bees  and  sometimes  saying 
things  back  to  each  other.  They  was  firing  up 
pretty  busy.  You  could  see  them  black  firemen  in 
front  of  the  fire-box  doors  throwing  the  cord-wood 
in.  We  did  n't  seem  to  get  ahead  at  all;  I  guess 
they  had  the  best  of  the  water.  They  had  first 
choice.  I  would  a-liked  to  a-gone  over  and  shoved 
them  out  if  it  was  n't  for  the  regulations.  It  was 
kind  of  narrow  channel  there ;  but  I  guess  we  had 
nearly  just  as  good  current. 

Our  captain  went  forward  on  top  and  looked 
down  and  asked  if  we  was  making  just  as  much 
steam  as  usual.  They  said  we  was  n  't  making  quite 
as  much  as  we  ought  to.  But  pretty  soon  it  began 
to  sputter  and  fizz  up  in  front — the  safety-valve 
leaking  out  the  steam  like  it  always  does  just  when 
you  are  beginning  to  get  enough  of  it  on.  That 
Muscoutah  had  been  hunching  up  on  us;  but  not 
much.  She  got  a  few  feet  ahead.  And  she  kept 


140  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

hunching  up.  Then  our  niggers  got  to  hollering 
over  more ;  and  their  niggers  hollered  back  like  they 
had  already  done  it;  and  then  it  got  all  excitement 
among  our  niggers.  But  pretty  soon  we  com 
menced  to  come  up— slow  and  steady— just  by 
inches— we  was  getting  up  some  steam.  Then  we 
kind  of  come  to  a  stop  till  you  could  n't  notice  it. 
We  was  throwing  in  some  cord-wood  too,  to  kind  of 
give  her  a  boost.  Them  boats  went  along  kind  of 
like  scales  that  ain't  decided  yet  which  end  is  the 
heaviest.  We  stood  and  watched  every  inch  and 
did  n't  say  a  word. 

You  could  n't  see  no  sign  then  which  was  going 
to  hunch  up  next.  Our  niggers  all  got  plum'  quiet 
and  stood  still  like  they  was  holding  their  breath. 
They  just  made  eyes  across  at  each  other.  Their 
captain  stood  up  in  front  and  did  n't  seem  to  notice 
we  was  there.  Our  captain  walked  from  side  to 
side  a  little  over  the  boilers  like  he  was  enjoying 
the  weather.  They  had  n't  paid  no  attention  to 
each  other's  niggers.  There  was  just  the  engines 
a-blowing  away  and  the  wash  of  our  wheels  meeting 
away  behind,  with  the  waves  jumping  up  at  each 
other  and  slopping  over  and  fighting  it  out. 

I  stood  and  watched  close.  It  looked  sometimes 
as  if  they  was  taking  an  inch  or  two  ahead.  We 
did  n't  seem  to  be  moving.  The  engines  was  just 
blowing  and  working  for  nothing.  But  I  looked 
past  their  stacks  up  at  a  bluff  and  the  scenery  was 
sailing  along  pretty  good.  The  Professor  walked 
restless  up  and  down;  I  guess  he  was  worried. 
Aunt  Jemima  was  standing  right  at  the  edge  of 
the  deck  talking  to  herself. 


"  <I  has  it  right  heah 


141 


142  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

Then  there  come  the  big  black  fireman  hurrying 
back  with  their  water  bucket  and  he  dipped  it  full 
in  the  barrel  and  called  Aunt  Jemima. 

"  Good-evening  Aunt  Jemima,"  he  says  (niggers 
is  awful  polite).  ''Did  you  take  away  de  flat-i'on? 
We  ain't  seed  it  sence  we  was  at  de  St.  Chawles' 
bridge." 

"I  done  took  it  away  fo'  to  i'on  de  boy's  shirt. 
He  got  it  all  dirty.  I  hain't  used  it  yet.  Does  yo' 
want  it  again  ? ' ' 

"Yes  'm— we  needs  it  now." 

"I  has  it  right  heah;  but  doan'  let  de  steam  dry 
on  it  when  you  is  froo  ef  yo'  kin  help  it.  'Kase  it 
make  it  all  rusty  on  de  bottom ;  an '  I  has  to  rub  an ' 
scour  it  wif  de  ashes." 

So  she  gave  it  to  him ;  and  he  went  away  with 
the  bucket  and  the  iron. 

Then  I  stood  and  watched  close.  It  seemed  like 
she  was  going  ahead  some ;  but  maybe  I  only 
thought  she  did.  That  Muscoutah  was  doing  her 
dirty  best.  The  fizzing  and  rumbling  stopped  up  in 
the  front  of  the  Speed  and  I  thinks  to  myself, 
"That  's  good;  now  we  '11  wait  a  little  and  see." 
The  Professor  he  turned  of  a  sudden  and  went  on 
top  of  the  cabin  and  stood  at  the  bottom  of  the 
pilot-house  steps.  He  looked  like  he  was  all  ready 
to  run  up  them.  Some  people  is  that  way.  Them 
exhaust-pipes  began  to  breathe  deep  and  loud — 
I  guess  the  farmers  along  there  all  knew  the  Speed 
was  snoring  louder  than  usual  that  night.  We 
began  to  go  ahead  a  little.  We  began  to  move 
along  the  Muscoutah  slow,  like  a  clock.  We 


THE  SPEED  HAS  A  RUN  FOR  HER  BACON  143 

hunched  up  steady.  Then  we  hunched  up  a  little 
faster.  The  engineer  stuck  his  head  out  of  the  door 
and  took  a  look  and  jerked  it  in  and  got  busy  down 
there ;  and  then  the  exhaust-pipes  threw  some  water 
about  five  feet  into  the  air  and  got  her  throat  clear 
and  started  to  blow  for  keeps.  Pretty  soon  we 


" Shoving  in  the  cord- wood" 

was  a  few  feet  ahead;  then  we  was  a  quarter 
ahead.  We  kept  a-going  steady— sometimes  I 
thought  we  was  n't  a-doing  it;  but  we  was— and 
then  we  was  pretty  near  half  ahead.  And  still 
a-hunching  up. 

The  Muscoutah  was   a-tr ailing   out  the  sparks 


A-coaxing  the  boat  along 


144 


THE  SPEED  HAS  A  RUN  FOR  HER  BACON  145 

lively;  we  was  a-putting  in  the  cord-wood  and 
sparking  just  the  same.  Their  niggers  was  shoving 
in  the  cord-wood  and  slamming  the  doors  after  every 
swallow  of  it  so  the  air  would  n't  come  in  over  the 
fire  but  would  give  them  every  breath  of  it  from 
below,  I  stood  and  held  my  breath  and  PRETTY 
NEAR  said  my  prayers.  I  guess  them  niggers 
all  was  doing  it  too ;  they  was  dead  quiet. 

Blame  if  we  did  n't  seem  to  be  stopping.  That 
Muscoutah  pretty  near  took  a  tuck  in  us— at  least 
it  looked  like  it.  But  pshaw !  we  just  getting  to 
the  point;  we  started  to  move  steady;  pretty  soon 
we  was  half  ahead— and  we  kept  ON  a-moving. 
We  was  crawling  away.  "Good  for  you,  Aunt 
Jemima,"  I  says.  "Good  for  you,  the  old  flat- 
iron  is  the  stuff ;  she  's  got  'em  beat ;  we  're  a-going 
to  do  it."  And  just  as  we  were  beginning  to  show 
them  our  stern  and  it  looked  like  we  would  pull  out 
for  keeps,  them  niggers  of  ours  started  up  again 
and  all  that  was  canned  up  in  them  tore  loose ;  and 
their  niggers  hollered  back,  trying  to  yell  them 
down: 

"Go  'long,  you  Speed!  Go  'long,  you  Speed! 
Come  along  now !  come  along  now ! ' '  And  some 
was  standing  up  hollering;  and  some  was  stooped 
over  watching  her  close  with  their  hands  on  their 
knees;  and  some  snapping  their  fingers  and  trying 
to  bring  the  luck  like  they  was  rolling  dice;  and  all 
their  niggers  the  same— a-coaxing  the  boat  along 
till  it  was  like  -forty-five  crap  games  rolled  into 
one— and  them  a-hollerin'  "Yo'  KAINT  do  it! 

Yo'  KAINT  do  it!     Come  'long,  you  Muscoutah! 
10 


146  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

Come  'long,  you  Muscoutah ! "  It  was  n  't  nothing 
but  noise  and  excitement  and  smoke  and  sparks, 
like  a  lunatic  asylum  on  fire,  with  their  niggers 
a-shoving  in  the  cord-wood  and  our  niggers  a-shov- 
ing  in  the  cord-wood  and  the  sparks  a-flying  be 
hind  and  the  red  light  of  the  fire-boxes  shooting 
out  over  the  bows;  with  the  furnaces  a-snapping 
their  jaws  and  showing  their  red  throats  like  bull 
dogs  a-pulling  to  get  at  each  other. 

Their  Captain  was  walking  up  and  down  kind 
of  unsettled  and  ours  was  standing  still  looking 
down  at  the  edge  of  the  cabin  where  the  boilers 
was.  We  pulled  out  till  we  showed  them  our  stern 
good  and  clean;  and  still  we  kept  a-moving. 

And  blame  if  we  did  n't  stop  going  and  that 
Muscoutah  begun  to  keep  up ;  and  she  stuck  to  us 
like  a  burr  to  an  old  cow's  tail.  We  had  n't  beat 
her  yet;  she  was  a-getting  up  the  steam  for  sure. 
Then  their  niggers  started  up  all  of  a  sudden  again 
like  they  seen  help  a-coming:  "Come  'long  now! 
Yah !  Yah  !  Yah !  Yo'  KAINT  do  it !  Come  'long, 
you  Muscoutah!"  And  then  our  niggers  all  got 
good  and  excited  and  went  to  work;  and  I  stood 
holding  my  breath  again  and  watching  her  close— 
but  she  was  n't  gaming  much— you  could  n't  tell 
whether  she  was  really  a-going  to  come  at  all  if 
they  did  have  the  valve  fixed— it  was  n't  as  good 
as  our  flat-iron,  I  bet— and  it  was  noise  and 
excitement  till  their  captain  was  just  swallowed 
up  in  it  and  ours  was  a-beginning  to  move  back 
and  forth. 

Then  he  leaned  out   and  looked   down  at  the 


THE  SPEED  HAS  A  RUN  FOR  HER  BACON    147 


l  Sho-o-ove  it  in  ! '  ". 


boilers  and  says,  "Put  it  to  her,  Griswold!  Pull 
out  of  here!    SHO-O-OVE  IT  IN!" 

Then  I  heard  Griswold— like  one  bark  of  a  ter 
rier  dog.  And  the  engineer  he  stuck  his  face  out 
and  pulled  it  in  again;  and  in  a  little  while  you 
could  just  see  the  Speed  spit  on  her  hands  and 
tighten  up  her  belt.  She  just  laid  down  to  it  and 
shoved  her  wash  back  against  the  bows  of  the  Mus- 


148  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

coutah  like  she  was  pushing  her  to  the  foot  of  the 
class.  And  we  moved  off  till  we  was  two  lengths 
and  three  lengths  and  four  lengths  away  and  going 
easy.  And  the  crossing  was  coming. 

I  looked  up  at  the  pilot-house,  which  was  like 
the  Speed — had  her  neck  stretched  away  up  in  the 
air  to  see  where  she  was  going — and  Preston  just 
standing  there  alone  doing  some  thinking.  He 
put  her  into  the  crossing  where  we  had  the  best  of 
the  water  there  was  a-going,  and  we  kept  right  on. 
When  we  was  six  or  seven  more  lengths  ahead  I 
heard  their  valve  let  loose,  which  I  says  to  myself, 
"They  have  lost  their  nerve  and  are  getting  dis 
couraged."  Then  we  walked  away  from  them. 
We  got  to  the  bluffs  and  turned  in  close  and  started 
to  run.  You  ought  to  a-seen  them  fade. 

The  Professor  come  down  from  above  and 
thought  a  minute  like  he  was  making  up  his  mind ; 
and  then  he  went  forward  to  the  boilers.  Pretty 
soon  he  come  back  and  climbed  up  on  the  engineer- 
house  and  wiped  off  sweat. 

"One  hundred  and  SIXTY-FIVE  pounds,"  he 
says.  ' '  And  only  a  hundred  and  forty  down  on  the 
license." 

Some  people  is  that  way.  But  we  don't  carry 
passengers  much,  except  they  take  a  notion  to  come. 

Pretty  soon  the  Muscoutah  was  away  behind,  too 
far  to  play  with  our  sparks;  she  was  still  coming 
over  the  crossing  and  coming  too  slow  to  bother 
about  any  more— and  the  niggers  give  her  one  more 
yell.  I  turned  a  flip-flap  on  deck  and  bumped  my 
head  some— I  had  n't  learned  it  all  yet— and  then 


THE  SPEED  HAS  A  RUN  FOR  HER  BACON  149 

I  stood  on  .my  hands  against  the  pantry  and  thinks 
to  myself.  "They  'd  better  take  a  look  at  us  now 
because  they  won't  see  us  for  a  while."  Then  our 
valve  tore  loose  and  the  exhaust-pipes  changed 
their  tune  and  the  Professor  just  sat  down  sudden 
on  the  trestle  and  said  it  was  a  fine  race  and  wiped 
the  sweat  off  his  face  nice  and  dry.  But  that 
was  n't  no  race ;  that  was  just  a  brush :  it  just  hap 
pened  that  we  passed  them.  Why,  if  the  Muscou- 
tah  wanted  to  really  race  us  she  would  n't  be  no 
where;  she  could  n't  hold  a  candle  to  us.  Because 
the  Speed  is  the  swiftest  boat  on  the  Missouri  and 
always  was. 


The  safety  valve 


CHAPTER  XI 


SAM  TALKS  HIMSELF  TO  SLEEP 


HEN  we  had  got  to  swing 
ing  along  regular  again 
the  Professor  started  talk 
ing  to  me  some  more.  He 
said  a  farmer  that  come 
up  on  the  boat  before  told 
him  that  the  Speed  was 
as  dangerous  as  a  thresh 
ing-machine  —  and  they 
are  mighty  dangerous. 
And  he  said  sometimes 
she  would  get  mixed  up 
in  her  own  works  and  run 


herself  right  through. 

"I  bet  if  she  turned  loose  now,"  I  says, 


with 


the  cargo  we  have  got  on,  there  would  be  a  lot  of 
winter  wheat  come  up  along  the  shore  where  we 
blowed  up." 

"I  guess  so,"  he  says. 

"I  bet  if  somebody  has  got  an  old  vacant  piece 
of  land  with  nothing  on  it  and  them  not  expecting 
anything  on  it,  and  they  was  to  come  along  and 
find  a  nice  big  crop  of  wheat  there  all  ready  to 

150 


SAM  TALKS  HIMSELF  TO  SLEEP         151 

reap  they  would  n't  be  sorry  we  blowed  up,  would 
they?" 

"Maybe  not,"  he  says. 

"And  we  would  be  the  chaff,"  I  says. 

He  did  n  't  say  nothing. 

"  I  'm  glad, ' '  I  says,  * '  that  we  pulled  away  from 
that  Muscoutah.  They  might  'a'  kept  putting  up 
the  steam  too  high ;  you  can 't  tell  what  might  hap 
pen  on  that  blame  boat.  If  she  went  up  right  next 
to  us  I  bet  it  would  be  bad  on  us;  don't  you  think 
so?"  He  said  he  guessed  so.  And  he  did  n't  say 
any  more.  He  just  seemed  to  want  to  have  me  talk 
to  him. 

"Because,"  I  says,  "them  other  boats  can't  do 
what  we  can.  Look  at  the  sister  of  the  Muscoutah. 
She  was  running  up  and  down  here  with  her  boilers 
used  to  drinking  the  muddy  water  all  the  time,  so 
that  she  did  n't  know  anything  else.  Then  one  day 
they  turned  up  one  of  them  rivers  that  looks  clear 
and  just  like  plain  water  but  has  stuff  in  it;  and 
it  did  n't  set  right  on  her  stomach.  Her  boilers 
foamed— and  when  they  get  to  foaming  that  way 
you  want  to  watch  out  if  you  know  it.  Biff !— and 
that  was  all.  They  had  to  get  a  new  boat.  She 
pretty  near  blowed  off  the  mouth  of  the  Osage. 
But  they  got  her  engines  up  because  they  used  them 
to  build  the  Lily  of  the  Valley— and  the  capstan 
and  such  things  that  went  down  with  the  Montana, 
and  a  shaft  off  the  Hawkeye,  which  was  a  good  one 
and  just  suited.  If  you  'd  keep  collecting  together 
that  way  you  could  get  a  new  boat  awful  cheap— 
all  but  the  woodwork.  You  'd  have  to  furnish 


152  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

your  own  woodwork.  Because  that  is  spoiled  when 
she  burns  up  or  blows  to  pieces.  And  if  she  strikes 
a  snag  and  goes  down  where  it  's  deep  it  don't 
hurt  the  wood  much;  but  it  ain't  worth  while  then. 
If  I  could  dive  like  Clancy  I  would  go  up  and  down 
the  river  and  get  a  lot  of  stuff.  But  we  don't  do 
none  of  them  things.  We  have  n't  sunk  but  a  few 
times— and  last  time  it  was  only  deep  enough  to  put 
out  the  fires." 

"A  few  times!"  he  says.  "How  often  do  you 
sink?" 

"It  all  depends,"  I  says.  "You  can't  tell. 
Sometimes  you  'd  run  right  through  a  summer  and 
not  sink  at  all.  Maybe  you  'd  go  down  once  in  a 
couple  of  summers.  It  's  just  when  a  snag  catches 
up  right  or  maybe  a  good  sawyer  that  the  gover'- 
ment  snag-boat  did  n't  get.  They  ain't  no  good 
but  to  keep  their  old  scow  painted  white,  anyhow ; 
we  strike  more  snags  than  they  do,  I  guess.  And 
them  looking  for  them.  I  bet  we  would  a-done 
something  this  morning  if  that  old  tree  had  been 
pointing  in  the  other  direction.  She  was  one  of 
them  accommodating  sawyers  that  stoops  down 
when  you  're  going  up-stream.  And  then  when 
you  're  coming  down  lickety-pelt  it  's  laying  for 
you  right.  But  lots  points  the  other  way— most  of 
them.  They  've  got  you  going  and  coming. ' ' 

"What  is  the  safest  place  on  a  boat?"  he  says. 

Just  then  we  were  passing  where  the  pilot-house 
of  the  Benton  was  looking  up  out  of  the  dark  water, 
with  the  current  running  through  its  windows, — 
which  were  all  put  out— and  swishing  lively  through 
where  the  wheel  used  to  be. 


SAM  TALKS  HIMSELF  TO  SLEEP         153 

"That  's  maybe  the  safest  place,"  I  says,  point 
ing  it  out  to  him.  "It  's  nicer  up  in  the  pilot-house 
anyways.  That  's  where  you  can  sit  on  the  leather 
seat  comfortable  and  hear  stories ;  it  's  cheerf uller 
in  the  pilot-house. 


The  pilot-house  of  the  Benton 


"And  you  '11  mostly  notice  that  when  she  just 
sinks  that  way  the  pilot-house  manages  to  keep  its 
head  out  of  water.  Then  maybe  you  can  climb  up 
and  get  on  top  of  it.  But  the  trouble  is  you  can't 
tell  whether  she  is  going  to  go  up  or  down.  That 
would  n't  a-been  any  good  place  when  we  blew 
out  our  manhole, ' ' 


154  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

' '  How  was  that  ? "  he  says. 

"Just  blew  it  out,"  I  says.  "It  sent  some  of 
them  lively  into  the  river  but  did  n't  hurt  nothing 
much.  It  was  the  right-hand  boiler  that  let  go." 

' '  And  did  you  get  ashore  with  the  other  boiler  ? ' ' 
he  says. 

' '  Other  boiler ! "  I  seen  he  did  n  't  know  nothing. 
"Why,  them  boilers  is  connected  up  like  Siamese 
twins  and  what  's  one  's  the  other's.  She  just  let 
go  and  ripped  the  manhole  right  out  around  the 
edge  and  threw  her  whole  insides  up  into  the  air 
like  a  geyser ;  and  that  quick  the  engines  and  wheel 
stopped— it  was  like  dropping  dead— and  we 
started  floating  right  back  down  the  current,  like  an 
old  house,  in  a  white  fog  so  thick  you  could  n't  see 
nothing.  But  after  a  while  it  kind  of  cleared  up 
and  the  channel  took  us  down  where  it  run  near 
shore  and  we  got  off  and  give  her  a  turn  round  a 
tree.  Most  boats  can't  do  what  we  can,  though. 
There  was  the  Montana,  that  was  pretty  near  pull 
ing  out  of  the  current  under  the  St.  Charles'  bridge 
and  she  stuck  to  a  plum'  standstill  and  the  rudders 
would  n't  work — 

' '  Rudders ! "  he  says.    ' '  You  mean  rudder. ' ' 

"How  could  a  boat  run  with  one  rudder?"  I 
says.  "Ain't  you  got  to  have  one  on  each  corner 
behind  ?  and  sometimes  a  couple  in  between.  'Spose 
a  snag  busted  one  or  two?" 

Blame  if  he  did  n't  go  and  look  before  he  would 
believe  THAT.  You  'd  'a'  thought  he  was  edu 
cated,  to  look  at  him.  It  made  me  wonder  whether 
he  believed  anything  I  said. 


SAM  TALKS  HIMSELF  TO  SLEEP         155 

"Well,"  I  says,  "the  Montana  was  trying  to  pull 
out  but  she  did  n't  hang  nothing  on  the  safety- 
valve —  " 

"Safety-valve,  you  say?"  he  says. 

"Of  course,"  I  says.  "If  you  was  pretty  near 
stuck,  like  we  was  this  spring,  and  was  a-going  to 
go  back  and  strike  on  them  sharp  piers  if  you 
did  n't  get  to  moving,  and  then  if  you  put  that 
flat-iron  on  the  lever  and  it  pulled  you  out  all 
hunkydory,  would  n't  you  call  that  SAFETY. 
What  else  would  you  call  it?"  He  did  n't  say 
nothing.  "This  boat  can  do  anything,"  I  says. 
* '  But  the  Montana  was  afraid  to  put  enough  steam 
on  and  went  down  when  it  was  too  late.  That  's 
what  comes  from  being  a  f raidycat. ' ' 

Well,  he  got  up  and  went  away.  I  was  sorry, 
because  I  liked  to  talk  to  him  after  I  got  started. 
But  he  never  come  back  to  listen  to  me  no  more. 
I  got  to  thinking  maybe  I  said  something  he  did  n't 
like ;  but  I  don 't  see  what. 

The  Captain  had  gone  and  turned  in.  I  looked 
up  on  top  and  blame  if  Valdes  was  n't  up  there 
again  looking  down  at  Griswold  like  he  was  on 
watch.  He  had  been  up  there  two  or  three  times 
that  way  and  did  n't  seem  to  be  interested  in  the 
race  even.  Pretty  soon  he  turned  around  and  went 
down  into  the  cabin.  I  give  him  up. 

Rags  he  was  hunched  up  to  me  and  sitting  on 
one  of  my  feet  like  he  always  does ;  and  the  sky 
was  sprinkled  with  stars.  The  moon  had  gone  over 
to  the  other  side  of  the  river— or  else  we  had  come 
round  a  bend.  I  don't  know  which— and  she 


"I  give  him  up  " 


156 


SAM  TALKS  HIMSELF  TO  SLEEP         157 

was   n't   making   much   time   now   because   there 
was  n't  any  bluffs. 

We  was  just  coming  down  the  middle  of  the  river 
where  she  was  spread  out  wide. 

Some  of  the  niggers  had  shut  up  and  snoozed 
off  on  the  wheat  sacks,  but  the  best  of  them  was 
singing  yet ;  so  I  sat  and  listened  about  '  *  when  de 
ark  was  finished  jes'  according  to  de  plan,  Massa 
Noah  took  his  family  both  animal  and  man, ' '  and  a 
lot  that  I  can 't  remember.  There  's  enough  of  them 
verses  to  last  a  long  time;  but  you  've  got  to  put 
between  every  part  of  it  how  she  is  movering  and 
movering  along.  Or  you  would  n  't  have  the  engines 
working  regular  and  the  ark  would  n't  be  running 
right.  I  never  heard  them  get  started  up  and  sing 
so  good  as  they  did  on  that  Fourth  of  July  Eve. 

Well,  I  thinks  to  myself,  the  Captain  has  turned 
in,  so  I  guess  I  better  turn  in  too;  there  did  n't 
seem  no  chances  for  anything  to  happen.  I  put 
Rags  on  a  wheat  sack  by  the  pantry— which  I  guess 
is  the  safest  place  from  both  ends— and  then  I  got 
Preston  fresh  water  and  went  and  laid  down  in 
Number  One.  And  when  I  laid  there  a  while  and 
felt  my  bunk  a-trembling  it  kind  of  shook  down  my 
feelings  comfortable  and  I  got  to  going  with  the 
engines  till  I  could  n't  think  of  nothing  but  that 
song: 

De  ole  ark  a-moverin',  a-moverin'  along 
De  ole  ark  a-moverin',  a-moverin',  armoverin', 
De  ole  ark  a-moverin',  a-moverin'  along 
De  ole  ark  a-moverin',  a-moverin'  along— 

And  I  guess  that  was  about  all  I  remembered 
of  it. 


CHAPTER  XII 


THE  BUCKET  TAKES  A  HAND 

EXT  morning  I  woke  up.   I 
figured    up    and    found    it 
was  the   day  after   Satur 
day  and  when  I  looked  out 
of  the  little  window  at  the 
head  of  my  bunk  I  could 
see  that  the  day  had  its 
Sunday    clothes    on.      I 
put  on  my  pants,  which 
I  had  took  off  that  night, 
and    wrent    out    and    got 
busy. 

The  niggers  was  all 
feeling  fine.  They  was  going  to  have  their  Fourth 
of  July  when  other  people  had  theirs  ate  up ;  and 
they  was  going  to  have  young  pig  when  the  rest  of 
folks  was  only  having  common  stuff.  That  is  what 
makes  you  feel  good.  Preston  came  down  from  the 
pilot-house  and  went  up  to  the  old  bar  in  the  cabin 
—which  was  n't  used  any  more  except  to  keep  old 
ropes  and  boxes  and  such  truck  behind— and  he 
fished  out  the  jug  of  brandy.  He  took  a  drink  to 
rest  up  on,  instead  of  breakfast,  and  he  went  and 

158 


THE  BUCKET  TAKES  A  HAND     159 

rolled  into  his  bunk.  And  Lang  was  at  the  wheel 
again. 

We  were  away  down  in  the  Gasconades  now, 
which  showed  we  had  come  along  a-whooping ;  and 
we  made  a  landing  in  a  jiffy.  You  can  make  a  fine 
landing  against  straight-up-and-down,  cut-off  clay 
where  the  main  channel  has  come  over  to  shore  and 
started  to  eat ;  it  is  like  a  soft  wharf  right  at  deep 
water  where  you  can  rub  up  alongside  and  put  on 
the  brakes— specially  if  you  have  a  stern-wheeler 
with  no  paddle-boxes  a-sticking  out.  You  just 
shut  off  and  lose  headway  and  then  rub  shoulders 
with  the  clay  and  stop  just  as  if  you  was  putting 
on  the  brakes  at  the  right  spot ;  and  I  bet  they  can 
make  a  better  landing  on  the  Missouri  than  any 
wheres  else.  A  down-stream  landing  is  the  same 
except  that  you  have  to  turn  around  and  come  up 
to  it ;  but  that  ain't  nothing.  The  Speed  made  that 
next  landing  like  a  bird  that  wheels  to  stop  itself 
against  the  air  and  comes  into  its  nest  the  back 
way. 

I  told  the  Professor  it  was  the  best  yet  and  he 
better  take  notice  of  them  things;  and  then  he  up 
and  says  maybe  I  was  boasting  again.  He  said  they 
was  maybe  as  good  down  on  the  Mississippi. 

" Blowing,  nothing,"  I  says.  "Look  at  a  Missis 
sippi  side-wheeler  trying  to  get  her  nose  in  right. 
Two  wheels  and  two  shafts.  Look  at  her ! "  I  says. 
"Dingle-dangle  down  in  the  engine-room  to  shut 
off  steam — dingle-dangle  to  change  the  valve-rods 
to  the  other  end  of  the  rockers  and  get  ready  to 
back— dingle-dangle  to  let  him  know  that  if  he  is 


160  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

ready  now  he  had  better  do  it— dingle-dangle  to 
bring  her  forward  this  side  and  dingle-dangle  to 
bring  her  forward  on  that  and  dingle-dangle  to 
let  up  on  the  whole  business  and  see  how  she  is— 
Pshaw ! "  I  says.  ' '  Do  we  fool  around  like  one  of 
them  boats  that  has  their  shafts  parted  in  the 
middle?  Do  you  see  us  do  that?  Lang  just  rings 
the  door-bell  to  let  Smith  know  that  a  town  is  com 
ing.  So  he  stops  work  and  lets  her  come.  But  of 
course  you  have  got  to  have  the  right  kind  of  a 
river  and  the  right  kind  of  a  boat  and  the  right 
kind  of  people;  I  am  talking  about  the  SPEED. " 

Well,  he  give  in.  He  said  maybe  I  was  right. 
I  could  get  the  best  of  him  no  matter  if  he  was 
somebody.  I  seen  his  name  in  print  and  it  had 
initials  on  both  ends;  it  was  a  side-wheeler— I 
guess  it  did  n't  belong  up  on  the  Missouri. 

We  got  away  from  that  landing  in  a  jiffy; 
Fourth  of  July  was  started  up  right  and  it  looked 
like  it  was  going  to  turn  out  pretty  fair.  I  had 
pretty  near  forgot  about  Valdes  and  Griswold.  It 
looked  to  me  like  they  was  both  afraid  of  each 
other  and  nothing  was  going  to  come  of  it.  But 
just  as  I  had  cleaned  up  after  breakfast  and  was 
thinking  that  way,  things  got  ready  to  happen. 
Which  is  what  you  might  expect. 

It  all  come  out  through  me  just  doing  my  work. 
You  see,  I  used  to  do  the  hardest  and  dangerousest 
thing  on  that  boat.  I  used  to  fill  the  water-barrel. 
That  's  hard  to  teach  some  people;  but  I  guess 
most  anybody  can  understand  it  that  has  brains 
and  thinks.  First  place,  when  you  Ve  got  a  bucket 


THE  BUCKET  TAKES  A  HAND     161 

on  a  rope  and  want  to  catch  up  water  on  a  steam 
boat  that  is  running,  you  want  to  do  it  right.  You 
don't  want  it  to  strike  bottom  side  up  or  it  will  be 
full  of  air  and  won't  fill  till  it  starts  to  drag;  you 
don't  want  it  to  strike  flat  on  its  side  or  it  won't 
fill  fast  enough;  and  you  don't  want  it  to  strike 
on  its  bottom  or  it  won't  fill  at  all.  Any  of  them 
ways  is  likely  to  be  the  end  of  you ;  they  will  catch 
the  water  of  a  sudden  at  the  end  of  the  rope  and 
give  you  a  jerk.  You  Ve  got  to  stand  with  your 
toes  right  at  the  edge  of  the  boat  or  you  could  n't 
h'ist  the  bucket  right;  and  there  ain't  any  railing 
around  the  edge,  so  you  don't  want  to  get  no  jerk. 
You  could  n't  hang  onto  no  bucket  anyway  if  it 
started  to  drag  twelve  miles  an  hour.  What  you 
want  to  do  is  to  throw  it  so  that  it  strikes  on  its 
lip  and  goes  right  in  and  takes  a  quick  swallow; 
then  you  give  the  rope  a  jerk  which  turns  it  aver 
and  fills  it ;  and  that  same  jerk  pulls  it  out  and  you 
have  got  a  bucketful  ready  to  haul  up.  You  do  it 
all  at  once  that  way,  just  so.  Second  place,  you 
kind  of  throw  the  bucket  ahead  on  account  of  the 
boat  going  so  fast.  And  you  have  the  right  length 
of  rope  to  give  it  the  jerk  at  the  right  time  just  as 
it  goes  in;  if  you  ain't  got  it  jerked  out  full  before 
it  has  passed  it  will  drag;  and  before  you  have 
got  time  to  remember  that  there  ain't  no  use  hang 
ing  onto  the  rope  it  will  give  you  a  jerk  and  over 
you  go.  Then  the  wheel  has  got  you.  It  ain't 
nothing  to  fill  a  water-barrel  when  you  know  how, 
though. 

The  Captain  and  the  steward  used  to  give  me 
11 


162  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

warning  about  it  and  say  maybe  I  ought  n't  to  do 
it;  but,  pshaw!  I  could  do  it.  That  bucket  never 
jerked  me  over.  I  practised  every  time  I  got  a 
chance.  When  I  had  the  barrel  filled  I  would  take 
up  more  and  pour  it  back  in  the  river  when  nobody 
was  looking;  and  that  way  I  got  good.  I  tackled 
her  when  the  boat  was  running  slow  and  kind  of 
worked  up.  I  had  n't  never  tried  it  when  we  was 
whooping  along  like  we  was  to-day ;  but  I  knew  I 
could  do  it.  The  barrel  looked  like  it  would  maybe 
stand  a  couple  of  bucketfuls,  so  I  went  at  it  and 
got  one  up,  kerslap.  I  did  n't  throw  it  quite  far 
enough  ahead;  but  I  jerked  quick  and  got  it  out 
all  right.  I  knew  all  the  time  that  I  could  do  it. 

Well,  when  I  had  gone  and  put  that  in  the  barrel 
and  come  for  another,  Griswold  seen  how  I  done 
it  and  he  come  down  the  hogways.  He  had  been 
bossing  things  up  in  front  and  I  guess  he  felt 
mean  and  measly  about  losing  sleep— and  maybe 
thinking  about  something;  so  he  sails  into  me  and 
starts  yapping  about  how  I  threw  in  that  bucket. 

1 1  That  's  no  way  to  do  that, ' '  he  says ;  and  while 
he  was  complaining  and  saying  I  would  lose  the 
Bucket  I  stood  with  the  bucket  in  my  hands  and 
did  n't  dast  to  talk  back. 

Just  then  Valdes  stepped  into  sight  out  of  the 
passageway  between  the  pantry  and  kitchen. 
There  was  n't  anybody  else  around  and  we  was 
all  alone— I  seen  to  that  before  I  started  to  prac 
tise.  He  come  right  out  on  the  engine-house  deck 
like  a  man  would  step  onto  a  theater  stage— just 
when  the  time  had  come. 


THE  BUCKET  TAKES  A  HAND     163 

"Griswold,"  he  says,  "if  you  can  do  it  and  the 
boy  can't— DO  IT,"  and  he  pointed  down  with 
his  arm  and  forefinger  just  as  he  snapped  it  out. 

I  guess  that  took  Griswold  pretty  much  by  sur 
prise;  and  he  did  n't  have  time  to  think— He 
gave  a  look  at  Valdes  and  grabbed  the  bucket 


"The  bucket  bobbing  up  and  down  on  the  waves" 


out  of  my  hands  and  slapped  the  bucket  straight 
down  into  the  water.  And  the  next  thing  I  knew 
Griswold  was  jerked  over  and  left  behind.  For 
just  about  a  flash  I  seen  him  passing  away  with 
just  his  arm  out  of  the  water.  His  arm  was  wav 
ing  like  he  was  trying  to  get  it  free  of  the  rope, 
and  catch  something.  I  give  a  yell  and  jumped 
up  on  the  engine-house  and  ran  astern  where  I 
could  look  out  past  the  big  wheel  and  see  back  of 
the  boat.  And  Valdes  after  me. 

There  was  n't  nothing  behind  but  the  bucket 


164  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

bobbing  up  and  down  on  the  waves  like  it  was 
dancing  with  gladness. 

Well,  when  I  give  the  holler,  the  Captain  and 
the  clerk  and  everybody  come  running  aft  to  see 
what  had  happened.  I  pointed  to  the  bucket  be 
hind  and  said  it  was  Griswold  that  went ;  and 
they  asked  me  a  lot  of  foolish  questions  about  what 
happened  while  you  could  snap  your  finger.  And 
there  was  n't  nothing  to  it  except  that  he  was 
showing  me  how  to  catch  up  water  and  got  caught. 

The  Speed  circled  round  and  stood  up-stream 
with  just  enough  steam  to  hold  her  against  the 
current,  with  the  wheel  going  round  kind  of  lazy 
and  us  not  moving;  the  river  just  flowed  past  us 
like  W7e"  was  an  island.  They  sent  two  niggers  out 
in  a  skiff  and  they  rowed  around  and  kept  looking 
the*  water  over  here  and  there.  After  a  while  the 
bucket  come  down  on  the  current  and  caught  up 
to  us— for  you  see  we  had  left  it  behind  coming 
down-stream.  It  passed  near  where  I  was  stand 
ing  and  danced  up  and  down  in  the  waves  again 
and  passed  on.  That  bucket  was  n't  going  to  stop 
for  nothing  like  that,  even  if  the  boat  did;  it  was 
bound  for  St.  Louis.  Well,  anybody  could  a-seen 
in  three  or  four  minutes  that  it  was  n't  any  use 
to  look  for  him  any  more.  But  we  fooled  round 
long  enough  to  be  decent  about  it.  Then  every 
body  looked  solemn;  and  the  Captain  said  he 
guessed  we  had  lost  track  of  him;  and  then  we 
turned  and  went  on.  After  a  while  we  caught  up 
to  the  bucket;  it  was  going  along  by  itself  the 
same  as  ever.  When  we  passed  it  I  went  to 


THE  BUCKET  TAKES  A  HAND     165 

the  wheel  and  looked  back ;  and  this  time  when  it 
struck  our  wash  it  danced  up  and  down  higher 
than  ever  and  wagged  its  rope  at  me  like  it  was 
making  motions  about  what  it  had  done. 

For  a  while  it  was  kind  of  quiet  and  lonesome 
all  over  the  boat.  But  the  Speed  was  hitting  it 
tip  the  same  as  usual.  The  engine  was  working 
regular;  and  you  could  feel  that  them  things 
did  n't  bother  engines  none.  And  that  helped 
considerable  to  pass  it  off.  The  niggers  in  the  hold 
was  talking  and  bragging  about  how  bad  he  was 
and  how  he  would  shoot  if  you  jumped  him;  and 
the  nigger  that  had  worked  under  him  the  longest 
boasted  the  most  important.  They  was  all  proud 
that  they  had  worked  for  a  mate  that  was  such  a 
bad  man.  They  praised  him  up  a  lot  that  way; 
and  then  dinner-time  come  and  I  rang  the  bell  and 
they  all  sailed  in.  And  when  we  had  been  going 
'long  regular  for  a  couple  of  hours,  with  everybody 
tending  to  their  work  and  the  boat  getting  farther 
away  from  the  place,  it  seemed  like  Griswold  had 
been  dead  a  long  time.  The  Captain  took  one 
of  the  niggers  and  put  him  to  drive  in  Griswold 's 
place  till  we  got  to  St.  Louis.  He  was  that  tall 
yellow  lazy  nigger  that  Griswold  had  been  hit 
ting  on  the  shins ;  and  blame  if  he  did  n  't  sail  in 
and  drive  them  worse  than  Griswold.  I  bet  he 
made  up  the  half  an  hour  we  lost.  I  kept  thinking 
about  Griswold  being  dead;  but  most  everybody 
else  was  busy  working.  Only  Valdes  sat  with  his 
head  on  his  hand  looking  solemn,  like  he  was  the 
only  one  that  was  real  sorry  about  it. 


CHAPTER  XIII 


THE  VICTORY  OF  RED,  WHITE  AND  BLUE 

WHILE  after  dinner  we 
blew  for  Madison  City. 
And  then  when  that  white 
shirt  came  out  I  could  n't 
say  nothing.  I  went  and 
made  up  my  mind  and  put 
it  on.  The  niggers  in  that 
town  had  on  their  Sunday 
clothes ;  and  the  crowd  of 
girls  showed  more  posy 
colors  than  a  flower  gar 
den  on  the  bank.  It  was 
an  awful  sweet-smelling 
town  on  account  of  the  kind  of  shade  trees  they 
had;  and  the  perfume  of  it  would  spread  right 
out  on  the  waters  of  a  summer  afternoon.  Lang 
always  said  he  could  shut  his  eyes  and  make 
a  landing  there;  he  could  pilot  by  smell  if  every 
place  was  like  that.  I  guess  the  niggers  there 
picked  out  the  shade  trees  on  account  of  the  per 
fume  instead  of  the  shade— a  nigger  don't  care 
much  for  shade  nohow— and  it  was  a  kind  of  a 
barber-shop,  cake-bakery  smell  all  over  town. 
I  always  liked  it  pretty  well.  But  to-day  the 

166 


THE  VICTORY  OF  RED,  WHITE  AND  BLUE    167 

perfume  of  it  smelled  to  me  like  a  funeral.  It  's 
funny  how  the  same  smell  can  smell  different  ways. 
And  with  me  standing  out  in  that  stiff  shirt  all 
dressed  and  uncomfortable,  it  was  mighty  solemn 
to  smell.  I  never  liked  it  no  more  after  that. 

While  I  was  standing  out  and  Aunt  Jemima 
was  sitting  in  her  best  apron  with  her  hands  folded 
and  thinking  secret  to  herself  how  fine  I  looked  to 
everybody,  that  Professor  come  out  all  dressed  up 
and  leaned  plum '  up  against  her  kitchen  like  he  was 
part  of  the  show  too.  When  Aunt  Jemima  seen  that 
she  straightened  up  and  looked  primmer  than  ever 
and  begun  talking  to  herself,  like  she  was  praying : 
"Lawdy,  I  do  hopes  dat  man  stay  right  da— jes' 
like  dat— jes'  like  dat."  He  helped  to  make  a 
fine  show  for  her  part  of  the  boat. 

And  when  Valdes  come— looking  handsomer  yet 
—it  most  took  her  breath  away.  But  he  was  com 
ing  to  see  me  before  he  got  off.  He  called  me  a 
little  aside  and  told  me  how  he  was  going  to  get 
off  to  satisfy  himself  whether  there  was  any  trace 
of  his  wife  to  be  found  there.  And  he  said  he 
would  see  me  again.  He  shook  hands  and  said  how 
much  obliged  he  was  for  what  I  had  done  for  him ; 
and  I  told  him  not  to  mention  it  because  I  had  n't 
done  nothing  worth  ten  dollars ;  and  then  he  shook 
hands  and  went. 

Well,  I  was  tired  standing  stiff  in  that  place, 
so  I  went  up  on  top  of  the  cabin.  And  what  did 
I  see  but  Blue  and  Red  standing  together  at  the 
edge  of  the  crowd,  and  whispering  together  friendly 
like  they  was  making  up  their  mind  together.  The 


THE  VICTORY  OF  RED,  WHITE  AND  BLUE    169 

Captain  seen  them  and  kind  of  smiled;  and  then 
he  called  to  the  pilot:  "Look  at  that,  will  you? 
There  's  them  two  that  we  put  on  the  island. 
They  've  BEAT  US  BACK."  Then  Lang  he 
chuckled.  I  guess  maybe  it  was  kind  of  funny 
when  you  looked  at  it  all  over.  When  they  had 
whispered  some  more  and  made  eyes  at  that  nigger 
that  was  in  Griswold's  place  they  come  marching 
down  abreast  like  soldiers  that  was  going  to  back 
each  other  up  and  started  to  talk  to  him.  The  Cap 
tain  hollered  down  to  take  them  back  if  that  was 
what  they  wanted;  so  the  tall  nigger  looked  ugly 
at  them  and  started  right  in  to  boss  them.  "Go 
an'  git  dem  bar 'Is.  An'  doan'  yo'  git  to  ac'in'  up 
on  dis  boat  no  mo'.  Kase  I  won't  HAB  it.  Git 
a-movin ' ! " 

Soon  as  we  was  away  from  that  place  I  got  my 
self  out  of  that  shirt.  Then  I  went  down  in  the 
hold  to  loosen  up  and  get  to  feeling  natural  again. 
That  Blue  and  Red  was  sitting  with  all  the  rest 
around  them,  a-telling  all  the  things  they  did. 
Red's  jaw  was  all  swelled  up  like  he  had  the  tooth 
ache;  so  Blue  was  doing  the  talking.  Red  was 
smiling  and  backing  him  up.  And  here  is  what 
they  done  on  that  island. 

After  the  boat  was  out  of  sight  Red  turned  and 
went  away  from  Blue.  And  when  he  was  a  little 
distance  away  he  turned  and  said  "You  jes'  wait. 
I  's  gwine  fix  you. ' ' 

"Yes,  you  is.  Look  a'  heah— do'an  you  come  in- 
stigatin'  roun'  me,  boy.  Doan'  you  come  pros- 
peckin '  roun '  my  en '  ob  dis  heah  island. ' ' 


170  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

Red  went  and  sat  down  in  the  willows  away  at 
the  other  end;  and  Blue  stood  on  the  edge  of  his 
end  holding  hands  with  a  bush  and  thinking  things 
over.  I  guess  they  was  both  so  big  and  strong  that 
neither  of  them  liked  to  start  in  on  the  other.  After 
a  while  it  got  mighty  tiresome— a  nigger  gets  lone 
some  easy  anyhow.  Blue  made  up  his  mind  he 
would  swim  off  alone;  out  Red  could  n't  swim, 
and  Blue  wanted  to  see  what  he  was  doing.  He 
scrouched  along  through  the  willows  till  he  come 
clean  out  to  the  sand-bar  at  the  other  end  and 
there  was  Red  sitting  under  a  bush. 

"Who  's  YOU  lookin'  at?"  says  Red. 

"I  's  a-lookin'  at  you;  dat  who  I  's  a-lookin'  at. 
How  's  you  gwine  to  git  off  dis  heah  island?" 

"How  YOU  gwine  git  off  dis  heah  island?" 

"I  's  a-gwine  swim  off.  Dat  how  I  's  a-gwine 
git  off." 

At  that  Red  jumped  right  up  on  his  feet  ready 
to  fight. 

"Look  a'  heah,  Blue;  doan'  you  go  talkin'  like 
dat  to  me.  Doan'  you  do  it.  You  s'pose  I  's 
a-gwine  leabe  you  go  off  an'  me  stay  heah  alone 
when  de  sun  is  down.  If  you  say  dat  no  mo'  I  's 
gwine  fight.  I  's  gwine  FIGHT." 

Well  they  bullyragged  each  other  a  while  till  I 
guess  they  forgot  what  it  was  all  about;  they  just 
kept  talking  and  keeping  each  other  company. 
Then  Blue,  who  was  a  good  swimmer,  he  says : 

"I  could  swim  off  wif  you,  too,  ef  yo'  had  sense. 
Does  you  s'pose  you  has  got  enough  sense  fo'  to 
float?" 

"How  you  do  dat  floatin'?" 


THE  VICTORY  OF  RED,  WHITE  AND  BLUE    171 

"You  jes'  b 'lives  you  kin.  Den  you  float.  De 
reason  you  kain't  float  is  jes'  'kase  you  doan' 
b'lieve." 

' '  Do  dat  b  'Kevin '  keep  you  up  ?  How  dat  gwine 
make  you  float?" 

"It  don't.  You  floats  anyways.  But  ef  you 
Disbelieve,  den  you  sink  down. ' ' 

"Ain'  I  tried  it?  An'  I  go  down.  Mah  feet  dey 
stahts  to  sink ;  and  dey  pull  mah  haid  down. ' ' 

"Dat  jes'  it— dat  jes'  it.  It  jes'  when  you  is 
sinkin'  dat  you  wants  to  do  de  b'lievin'  dat  you 
ain't.  Jes'  when  you  is  sinkin'  you  wants  to 
b'lieve  dat  you  is  floatin'.  Den  you  keep  on  an' 
you  float." 

Well,  Red  could  n't  see  how  that  was  going  to 
keep  him  up  when  he  was  going  down ;  but  he  said 
he  would  try  it,  and  if  it  worked  maybe  he  could 
believe  it.  Blue  took  him  around  into  a  patch  of 
easy  water  and  showed  him  how*  he  could  hold  him 
up  on  one  hand  when  he  laid  still  with  just  his  face 
out.  Then  he  held  him  on  one  finger;  and  after 
a  while  he  took  his  finger  away  slow  to  see  if  Red 
would  keep  on  b'lieving.  Red  started  to  go  down 
slow  at  one  end ;  and  when  he  felt  that  he  scram 
bled  and  got  up  with  his  mouth  full  of  water. 

"See,  Blue;  dat  b'lievin'  ain't  emmgh  fo'  to 
make  me  float.  But  it  do  work  SOME." 

"'Course  it  do.  You  has  a  big  chest;  you  kin 
float.  Only  you  doan'  b'lieve  enough." 

"It  keep  mah  haid  up.  In  mah  haid  wha  I  do 
de  b'lievin'  it  work;  it  keep  dat  en'  up  all  right. 
I  wisht  I  could  do  some  b'lievin'  in  mah  feet." 

"Doan'  you  mind  dem  feet.    Dem  feet  ain'  none 


172  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

ob  your  business.  Ef  you  kain't  b'lieve,  maybe  you 
is  de  kind  dat  would  do  bettah  ef  you  jes'  doan' 
GIVE  A  CENT.  Doan'  give  a  cent  what  happen. 
Dat  work  jes'  as  well.  Ef  you  staht  to  go  down 
jes'  go  down.  Go  down  an'  drown— an'  keep  ON 
a-drownin'.  Den  you  woan'  do  it.  You  float." 

"Maybe  I  kin  do  dat  bettah— it  seem  to  come 
mo'  nache'l.  But  befo'  we  stahts  dis  heah  b'lievin' 
an'  dis  heah  doan'-carin',  I  wants  to  tell  you  secret 
dat  I  do  care." 

"Well,  you  try  it  good.  Trouble  is  you  doan' 
try  it  to  de  en',  an'  keep  on  a-doin'  it." 

"Well,  I  's  a-gwine  give  it  a  good  chanst.  But 
doan'  YOU  git  to  thinkin'  no  sech  foolishness. 
You  jes'  keep  in  mind  dat  I  ain't  a-tryin'  fo'  to 
drown." 

Well,  Red  he  tried  it  and  he  said  it  did  n  't  wrork ; 
but  he  got  so  good  that  he  could  float  if  Blue  just 
kept  his  hand  under  him  a  little.  He  was  getting 
used  to  it  and  saw  there  was  something  in  it. 
Then  Blue  swum  around  with  him  a  while  near 
the  island. 

"Look  a'  heah,  Red:  I  could  git  you  to  de  land 
now  ef  you  jes'  leave  it  to  me.  You  doan'  hab  to 
do  none  of  dat  sho'  nuff  b'lievin'.  All  you  has  to 
do  is  to  b'lieve  in  me.  Jes'  b'lieve  dat  I  won't  let 
you  go  down— no  mattah  ef  it  git  to  lookin'  dat 
way  to  you.  Do  you  spec '  yo '  kin  b  'lieve  dat  ? ' ' 

"Sho';  doan'  I  see  you  kin  hold  me  up?  I  kin 
float  ef  you  is  touchin'  me— I  kin  float  anywhah." 

"Den  we  gwine  staht.  Lay  down  an'  staht 
b'lievin'  in  me.  Doan'  take  you  min'  off'n  it; 


THE  VICTORY  OF  RED,  WHITE  AND  BLUE    173 

doan'  git  to  thinkin'  fo'  youse'f.  Kase  ef  you  do, 
down  you  go.  You  has  got  to  trus'  me  lak  a  li'l 
chile- JES' lak  a  li'l  chile." 

Well,  Blue  took  hold  of  him  and  started  out; 
and  blame  if  Red  did  n't  believe  in  him  all  the 
way  over  till  they  got  nearly  to  the  bank.  The 


Jes'  lak  a  IN  chile'  " 


bank  they  come  to  was  straight  up  and  down  and 
almost  ready  to  cave  in  with  the  water  slopping 
under  it.  It  was  deep  channel  water  right  up  to 
shore  and  no  way  to  get  up  that  bank  at  all.  Blue 
turned  with  him  and  kept  swimming  down  river. 

Red  laid  on  his  back  looking  up ;  and  when  he 
turned  his  eyes  and  seen  that  shore  he  lost  his  grip 
on  his  believer  and  then  he  made  a  scramble  for 


174  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

land.  When  he  done  that  and  did  n't  find  no  bot 
tom  under  his  feet  he  made  a  grab  for  Blue;  and 
both  of  them  went  down.  And  then  them  two  was 
having  a  rassling  match  and  fighting  it  out  down 
at  the  bottom  of  the  river.  When  they  come  bob 
bing  up  to  daylight,  Blue  had  his  fist  ready  and  he 
hauled  off  and  let  Red  have  it  on  the  jaw  just 
where  he  knew  his  weak  spot  was.  That  settled 
Red;  he  did  n't  bother  Blue  no  more.  Blue  was 
pretty  near  played  out  towing  him  along  and  try 
ing  to  hold  his  face  high  out  of  water;  but  now  he 
did  n't  try  to  hold  his  face  out  at  all.  He  just 
took  Red  along  anyway  and  swum  every  way  and 
blowed  the  water  up  before  him  trying  to  get  wind 
and  rest  himself.  Once  he  thought  he  would  have 
to  give  up,  but  he  hated  to  lose  such  a  good  coon- 
jiner  so  he  stuck  it  out.  At  last  he  come  to  a  little 
rain-gulley  in  the  bank  where  he  hauled  Red  in 
and  got  him  up  on  shore.  He  rolled  him  on  the 
bank  and  bumped  him  up  and  down  till  he  guessed 
he  had  the  water  out  of  him ;  and  then  he  sat  down 
and  pumped  his  arms  to  see  if  the  life  would  come 
up.  Pretty  soon  Red  rolled  his  eyes  and  sat  up 
and  looked  around. 

"Is  dat  you,  Blue?    Wha  is  we  at?" 

"We  is  right  here  in  'Souri,  dat  's  wha  we  is  at. 
An'  I  jes'  had  to  lambaste  you  on  de  jaw  or  else 
we  would  n't  be  heah.  How  is  you  feelin'?" 

"I  ain't  feelin'  very  good  yet." 

"How  is  yo'  face  a-feelin'f" 

"It  feel  lak  de  toofache." 

"Well,  den,  I  guess  you  an'  me  is  about  even," 
says  Blue. 


THE  VICTORY  OF  RED,  WHITE  AND  BLUE    175 

Red  worked  his  jaw  a  few  times  to  see  how  it 
felt.  Then  he  rolled  his  eyes  around  again  and 
said: 


< « I  jes  had  to  lambaste  you  '  ' ' 


"Even,  you  say.  EVEN!  Lawd!  Blue,  I  guess 
we  is  MO '  en  even. ' ' 

And  that  was  all  them  two  blame  niggers  done ; 
they  did  n't  fight  at  all.  They  got  on  a  freight- 
train  and  beat  the  Speed  back  to  Madison  City. 
Blue  had  his  head  tied  up ;  and  Red  had  his  head 
tied  up ;  and  they  sit  there  bragging  and  backing 


176  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

each  other  up  and  being  such  friends  it  made  me 
SICK.  I  got  up  and  went  away  from  there. 

The  Speed  come  along  steady  the  rest  of  that 
day.  When  I  went  to  bed  it  looked  as  if  every 
thing  was  done  happening  and  it  would  just  be  a 
case  of  making  time.  The  white  snag-scow  that 
likes  to  hang  round  St.  Louis  considerable  did 
keep  the  snags  pulled  out  of  the  mouth  of  the 
Missouri  anyway.  So  we  could  make  time  that 
night  pretty  safe,  I  guessed. 

I  woke  up  with  the  whistle  blowing ;  and  when  I 
looked  out  of  the  narrow  window  at  the  head  of 
my  bunk  I  seen  it  was  the  dusk  of  morning.  I 
jumped  right  out  of  bed  and  put  my  hat  on  and 
went  up  on  top.  There  was  the  St.  Louis  elevator 
right  in  sight;  and  there  was  the  old  Bald  Eagle 
coming  along  even  with  us  from  the  upper  Miss 
issippi — and  she  was  n't  showing  us  any  tricks,  if 
she  was  a  side-wheeler.  And  there  was  our  captain, 
with  the  others  around  him;  and  he  was  talking 
up  to  Preston  with  the  watch  in  his  hand.  Well, 
when  I  heard  what  they  was  saying  I  felt  good.  I 
stood  on  my  hands  against  the  smoke-stack  right 
when  the  Captain  was  looking:  And  he  did  n't 
say  nothing,  neither.  We  had  busted  the  Fourth 
of  July  record  right  up  the  middle.  We  had  beat 
it  by  more  than  two  hours  and  I  would  like  to  see 
the  Muscoutah  do  that. 


CHAPTER  XIV 


SAM  MAKES  SOME  FINE  DISTINCTIONS 

OU  never  miss  nothing  till 
you  have  n't  got  it  no 
more.  I  found  that -out  in 
St.  Louis.  And  if  you 
ain  't  going  to  have  it  right 
along  it  's  maybe  better 
not  to  get  used  to  it  at  all. 
Afterwards  you  '11  pretty 
near  wish  you  never  knew 
about  it :  that  's  what  I 
I  did. 

You  see  it  took  us  two  days  to  unload  and  load 
at  St.  Louis,  and  on  the  second  day  in  the  morning, 
which  was  Tuesday,  I  seen  Valdes  coming  down 
the  levee.  He  come  to  see  me.  He  had  n't  found 
any  trace  of  his  wife  in  Madison  City  and  he 
would  .like  to  talk  to  me  when  we  had  plenty  of 
time.  He  gave  me  the  card  of  his  hotel  and  wanted 
to  know  if  I  would  n  't  like  to  come  and  have  a  visit 
and  a  comfortable  talk  with  him.  I  told  him  I 
guessed  I  could.  There  was  n't  much  to  do  when 
we  were  lying  there  at  St.  Louis — no  pilot  to  be 
tended  to 'and  no  niggers  to  feed— so  I  could  mostly; 

12  177 


178  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

get  off  a  while.     He  said  for  me  to  come  by  all 
means;  and  he  went  away." 

I  got  my  chores  done  a  while  before  dinner-time 
and  I  decided  I  better  go  without  waiting  for  any 
thing  to  eat ;  I  was  n  't  hungry  yet,  anyways.  So 
I  washed  my  face  and  kind  of  smoothed  Rags  out 
and  we  went.  Everybody  knew  where  that  hotel 
was,  and  when  we  got  there  I  went  right  into  the 
big  hall  where  everybody  was  sitting  round  taking 
it  easy  and  talking  about  the  prices  of  cotton  and 
things— planters  and  people  that  have  n't  got  any 
thing  to  do.  When  I  was  looking  around  to  see 
where  the  clerk's  office  was  I  seen  Valdes  over  by 
a  cigar-stand.  He  shook  hands  and  was  glad  to 
see  me.  I  found  he  had  just  had  dinner  and  was 
going  to  have  a  smoke.  The  clerk  asked  him  what 
kind  he  would  have;  and  he  said  he  would  take 
Havana  and  the  color  of  it  must  be  Maduro.  He 
said  he  liked  a  heavy  cigar  right  after  dinner  but 
he  preferred  a  lighter  domestic  later  in  the  day. 
"Well,  when  the  clerk  handed  him  the  box  he  pushed 
it  back  and  said  it  must  be  a  Londres  shape.  He 
said  he  liked  a  Londres  shape  for  a  good  easy- 
chair  smoke  after  dinner ;  and  no  matter  what  some 
people's  taste  might  be  he  liked  a  panatella  for 
the  street.  When  the  clerk  got  him  just  the  right 
kind  he  put  down  a  quarter  and  did  n't  get  no 
change.  You  'd  think  it  was  only  a  cent — the  way 
he  spent  it.  Then  he  looked  around  and  said  he 
believed  he  would  take  a  couple  of  the  small  cigars 
with  Manilla  wrappers,  which  was  the  kind  he 
liked  the  first  thing  in  the  morning.  And  he 


SAM  MAKES  SOME  FINE  DISTINCTIONS    179 

shoved  over  fifty  cents  for  them  and  did  n't  get 
no  change.  He  just  lit  up  and  spoke  to  me  polite 
and  said  he  hoped  I  had  n  't  learned  to  smoke  yet ; 
and  when  I  said  I  had  n't  practised  much  he  pat 
ted  me  on  the  shoulder  and  said  to  come  along  with 
him  to  his  room. 

But  before  we  got  to  the  elevator  he  remembered 
his  socks  did  n 't  suit  him ;  and  he  believed  he  would 
get  some  now.  So  we  stepped  out  next  door  to  get 
them.  He  found  some  fifty  cent  socks  that  suited 
him  pretty  fair.  But  just  as  the  clerk  was  going 
to  wrap  them  up  he  noticed  something  and  said 
they  would  n't  do.  There  was  a  seam  down  one 
side;  and  he  said  his  feet  could  never  stand  for 
seams.  He  had  roughed  around  and  lived  all  kinds 
of  ways  but  there  must  n 't  be  no  seams  in  his  socks 
if  he  could  help  it.  The  clerk  found  some  sixty 
cent  pairs  without  and  they  was  all  right.  Well, 
I  picked  up  them  socks  that  was  n't  good  enough 
and  looked  at  them.  That  seam  was  just  a  fine 
little  seam;  it  was  n't  no  bigger  than  the  weaving 
of  some  socks  I  've  seen.  Why  I  'd  worn  socks 
that  you  could  see  the  pattern  of  them  printed  into 
your  feet  when  you  went  in  swimming ;  and  they  'd 
be  that  way  when  I  had  been  in  so  long  that  my 
hands  was  puckered. 

And  I  would  never  a-thought  to  mind  it  if  I 
did  n't  know  any  different. 

He  got  what  he  wanted  and  we  went  back  to 
the  elevator;  and  then  I  happened  to  remember 
that  I  was  thirsty ;  and  I  guessed  I  had  better  have 
a  drink  of  water  somewheres  before  we  got  up  to 


180  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

his  bedroom  where  there  would  n't  be  any.  He 
guessed  he  would  have  a  drink,  too,  later  in  the 
day;  so  he  called  a  nigger  boy  and  told  him  to 
send  us  up  a  bottle  of  water  for  twenty-five  cents. 
If  I  'd  a-known  that  I  would  a-taken  pop;  I 
never  would  pay  out  money  for  water.  But  it 
turned  out  to  be  worth  it :  it  was  cool  and  had  all 
tne  mud  taken  out  of  it.  I  have  seen  clear  water 
in  the  Osage  and  places ;  but  I  never  seen  no  clear 
water  that  was  fit  to  swallow— unless  you  wanted 
the  chills  and  fever.  Good  drinking  water  has  got 
to  have  Missouri  mud  in  it.  But  this  clear  water 
was  good  and  would  n't  hurt.  Rags  he  hustled 
right  onto  the  elevator  and  I  said  maybe  it  was  n  't 
proper  for  him  to  come  up.  But  Valdes  he  said 
he  guessed  it  was  all  right ;  dogs  has  got  a  right  to 
go  visiting,  anyway;  and  if  it  was  n't  his  room 
he  'd  like  to  know  it.  The  elevator  fellow  just 
smiled  polite  and  did  n't  talk  back  to  him. 

His  room  was  something  fine.  It  was  finer  than 
the  cabin  of  the  Natchez — and  I  thought  that  was 
something  special.  There  was  water  in  it,  too;  all 
he  had  to  do  was  to  step  into  a  little  room  and  get 
it  hot  or  cold,  and  if  he  pulled  a  string  it  would 
come  like  rain.  He  had  that  all  by  himself  to 
stand  under  and  let  it  wash  him. 

He  took  off  his  coat  and  hung  it  on  a  stretcher 
and  loosened  up  his  vest  and  sat  down  in  a  chair 
big  enough  for  our  captain  and  gave  me  another. 
Then  he  reached  around  and  rung  a  bell;  and  a 
nigger  come  quicker  than  a  fire-engine  to  see  what 
he  would  have.  Valdes  said  he  would  take  Cognac 
and  soda.  He  asked  me  what  I  would  have.  "Well, 


SAM  MAKES  SOME  FINE  DISTINCTIONS    181 

I  looked  at  my  bottled  water  and  thought  maybe 
I  ought  n't  to  ask  for  anything  more  that  cost 
money.  But  I  guessed  I  would,  so  I  said  I  would 
take  some  brandy.  Valdes  looked  at  the  nigger 
and  smiled  and  said,  "I  guess  he  means  ginger 
ale."  He  got  a  bottle  and  it  cost  less  than  water; 
but  it  cost  fifteen  cents.  It  was  worth  it,  though. 
It  went  right  up  your  nose  and  tasted  good  all  the 
way  down.  I  guess  that  five  cent  stuff  is  just  a 
fraud.  But  I  never  knew  it  before. 

Well,  he  stretched  out  and  puffed  at  his  cigar 
and  things  got  comfortable;  leastwa\ri  it  was  com 
fortable  for  him  and  Rags.  But  I  was  n't  real 
easy  yet.  There  was  a  big  bear-skin  rug  on  the 
floor  and  Rags  had  got  into  the  middle  of  that  and 
rolled  over  on  his  back  and  rolled  his  eyes  around 
satisfied ;  he  looked  like  the  bear  was  an  old  friend 
of  his.  It  just  suited  him.  And  when  he  had 
squirmed  around  a  few  times  he  laid  himself  out 
flat  with  his  chin  on  his  paw  and  looked  like  he  was 
used  to  such  things  before.  Rags  was  a  dog  that 
you  did  n't  need  to  be  ashamed  to  take  anywheres. 
He  would  act  as  if  the  best  was  not  any  too  good 
for"  him ;  and  you  'd  think  he  was  used  to  it  all  his 
life.  You  can't  faze  a  dog  with  anything  like  that. 

"Well,  my  boy,"  says  Valdes,  "make  yourself 
easy.  Drink  up  your  ginger  ale;  there  's  more  if 
you  want  it.  Just  make  yourself  comfortable." 
Then  he  went  on  and  talked  about  what  a  nice  day 
it  was,  and  did  I  ever  go  to  school  and  did  I  like 
steamboating  and  such.  And  he  says,  "Make  your 
self  right  at  home." 

But  pshaw !  I  could  n't  put  my  feet  up  and  get 


182  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

used  to  it  all  of  a  sudden  like  that.  It  only  takes 
a  little  piece  of  your  mind  to  talk  about  school  and 
such  things,  anyhow;  and  the  rest  of  me  was 
worrying  about  Rags  and  what  he  was  doing.  I 
was  afraid  he  would  give  that  rug  fleas.  How 
would  they  know  it  was  dead?  They  would  n't 
know— not  till  Rags  got  up  and  went  away.  Then 
it  would  be  too  late  for  them,  I  bet. 

You  can't  hardly  keep  fleas  off  a  dog,  no  matter 
how  hard  you  try.  I  rubbed  him  one  day  with 
nearly  half  of  the  Captain's  bottle  of  mosquito 
lotion  that  he  rubs  on  his  face  so  he  can  sleep 
nights  at  the  St.  Louis  levee.  That  's  good  for 
mosquitoes  but  I  found  you  can't  fool  no  fleas  with 
it.  Fleas  is  awful  smart.  I  heard  a  fellow  that  was 
looking  at  my  dog  say  that  you  can  train  fleas  to 
do  anything;  a  flea  is  as  smart  as  an  elephant. 
There  's  men  that  can  train  them  to  do  all  kinds  of 
circus  acts ;  and  when  you  look  at  them  through  a 
glass  the  performance  is  just  as  good  as  a  big 
one.  And  that  shows  that  you  can't  get  the  best 
of  them  even  when  they  ain't  had  no  lessons; 
they  're  awful  smart.  I  guess  it  comes  from  asso 
ciating  with  people  so  much.  But  Rags  did  n't 
care.  He  lolled  around  and  took  it  as  easy  as  if 
the  bear  was  no  better  than  he  was. 

I  kept  on  drinking  ginger  ale  between  times 
until  I  was  pretty  near  ready  to  go  up  like  a  bal 
loon.  Valdes  did  n  't  say  what  he  wanted  to  see  me 
about  or  get  down  to  business  at  all;  and  I  guess 
he  noticed  all  the  time  that  I  was  kind  of  stiff  and 
not  right  at  home.  "Make  yourself  right  at  home/' 


SAM  MAKES  SOME  FINE  DISTINCTIONS    183 

he  says.  "We  've  got  the  whole  afternoon  to  visit 
and  there  is  no  hurry.  I  hardly  expected  you 
would  get  here  so  soon.  You  must  have  had  early 
dinner  on  the  boat. ' ' 

Well,  I  told  him  I  did  n't  have  no  dinner:  I 
was  n't  hungry  when  I  left,  anyhow. 

"No  dinner!"  he  says.  He  got  up  and  buttoned 
his  vest  and  put  on  his  coat.  '  *  Then  you  'd  better 
come  down  to  the  dining-room  and  have  some  din 
ner,"  he  says.  "You  can't  sit  and  talk  on  an 
empty  stomach."  Rags  got  right  up,  too,  but  we 
shut  the  door  and  left  him  behind. 

I  never  ate  such  a  dinner  as  that;  there  was  a 
special  nigger  to  wait  on  me.  But  I  did  n't  mind 
that;  I  know  how  to  boss  niggers.  It  was  so  big 
they  had  to  make  seven  or  eight  jobs  of  it  and  I 
dirtied  ten  or  twelve  plates.  Some  of  it  was  so 
good  you  could  n't  tell  what  it  was.  When  I  had 
eat  through  to  the  end  and  found  there  was  more— 
and  it  getting*  better  all  the  time— I  was  sorry  I 
did  n  't  know  it  in  the  fii'st  place.  But  the  last  was 
ice-cream,  which  I  took  chocolate ;  and  they  brought 
it  all  made  into  the  shape  of  a  dog  that  looked 
something  like  Rags ;  but  that  melted  inside  of  me 
and  went  in  between  all  right.  Maybe  nobody 
won't  believe  it,  but  this  is  true:  I  eat  up  most 
three  dollars  worth.  If  I  had  that  ticket  I  could 
prove  it.  It  kind  of  surprised  me ;  but  when  Val- 
des  looked  at  it  he  was  n't  mad  at  all. 

When  I  got  up  to  the  room  again  that  dinner 
kind  of  held  me  down  solid  in  the  chair  like  I  be 
longed  there;  and  I  was  commencing  to  feel  pretty 


184  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 


"Which  I  took  chocolate 


natural.  I  used  to  think  things  was  things;  but 
they  ain  't.  There  's  a  real  kind  of  everything  and 
if  you  ain't  got  the  money  your  kind  is  just  a 
fraud.  If  you  Ve  got  the  money  there  's  more 
expensive  pie  and  more  expensive  water  and  high- 
priced  pop.  Who  'd  think  it  that  did  n't  taste  it? 


SAM  MAKES  SOME  FINE  DISTINCTIONS     185 

You  take  that  mock-apple  pie  that  Aunt  Jemima 
can  make.  It  's  just  the  bread  that  's  left,  with 
some  sugar  and  vinegar  in  it:  and  when  you  Ve 
got  the  crusts  on  and  baked  there  's  lots  of  people 
would  take  it  for  apple  pie.  You  would  hardly 
know  the  difference  except  it  gets  mushy  in  your 
mouth  if  you  chew  too  long  before  you  swallow. 
You  'd  think  it  was  all  right  unless  you  was  real 
used  to  ordinary  pie.  Well,  the  kind  of  pie  in  the 
hotel  made  regular  ordinary  pie  seem  mocky. 

Everything  was  that  way.  What  most  people 
has  is  only  imitation.  But  they  don 't  know  the  dif 
ference;  they  never  found  out. 

Well,  after  we  had  talked  about  how  old  Rags 
was,  and  where  did  Clancy  get  him,  and  what  he 
maybe  was  besides  spaniel,  and  did  I  go  in  swim 
ming  much,  I  begun  to  see  what  he  wanted  of  me. 
He  thought  if  we  got  to  talking  about  everything 
and  spoke  of  Clancy  once  in  a  while  maybe  I  would 
let  out  something  I  had  n't  thought  to  tell.  Well,  I 
did  n't  know  nothing  more;  and  when  I  found  that 
out  and  that  I  was  getting  all  these  things  for  noth 
ing  it  made  me  feel  cheap.  After  a  while  I  told 
him  I  did  n  't  know  no  more  and  I  guess  I  better  go. 
But  he  said  that  did  n't  make  no  difference;  he 
was  kind  of  lonesome  and  he  liked  boys,  anyway. 
He  said  I  must  sit  down  and  spend  the  afternoon 
just  for  company.  And  maybe  I  would  think  of 
something. 

After  a  while  I  got  to  asking  him  about  himself 
and  what  he  thought  he  would  do,  and  where  did 
HE  think  maybe  his  wife  and  little  girl  was.  He 


186  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

did  n't  want  to  talk  much.  But  I  kept  asking 
him  something  every  once  in  a  while.  Then  he 
sat  and  looked  at  me  and  said  "You  are  a  serious- 
minded  boy,  ain't  you?"  And  after  that  he  took 
me  more  serious.  And  after  he  got  started  to 
talking  about  them  serious  things  he  went  on  and 
got  interested  in  what  he  was  saying  himself. 
He  said  how  nice  him  and  his  wife  was  getting 
along  when  he  left ;  and  how  smart  and  how  good- 
looking  his  little  girl  was;  and  how  big  a  young 
lady  she  would  be  now.  And  he  wondered  would 
she  look  like  his  side  of  the  family  the  way  she 
did  when  she  was  little,  and  if  she  got  to  looking 
more  that  way— and  maybe  like  his  mother  when 
she  was  young.  And  he  went  on  and  wondered 
how  glad  she  would  be  to  see  him  and  have  him 
back ;  once  he  forgot  to  puff  his  cigar  and  it  pretty 
near  went  out.  He  thought  he  was  talking  just  to 
me ;  but  I  guess  it  was  mostly  for  himself. 

Then  he  started  in  on  me  and  Clancy  again. 
But  that  was  n't  no  use.  I  told  him  the  whole 
thing  over  again  till  I  came  to  a  stop,  thinking 
maybe  that  would  satisfy  him.  Well,  it  did,  kind 
of;  but  no  matter  which  way  our  talk  went  you 
could  see  that  he  was  watching  to  get  something 
out  of  me  about  his  little  girl  and  his  wife. 

As  long  as  I  was  going  to  stay  so  long  I  thinks 
to  myself,  I  will  find  out  why  it  was  that  he  did  n't 
jump  Griswold.  I  asked  him  a  good  many  ques 
tions  that  he  would  just  pass  up  and  tell  me  that 
some  things  would  be  hard  for  me  to  understand. 
But  when  I  got  his  mind  on  it  he  talked  some 
about  it. 


SAM  MAKES  SOME  FINE  DISTINCTIONS    187 

The  best  I  could  make  out  was  this.  You  see  he 
hated  Griswold  but  he  did  n't  exactly  despise 
him.  He  did  despise  him  some  ways;  but  you  see 
the  main  thing  Griswold  did  was  to  just  care  for 
Valdes'  wife  the  first  and  then  keep  on  liking  her. 
And  Valdes  could  n't  hate  him  as  much  as  he  'd 
like  to  for  that;  especially  when  he  was  feeling 
sorry  himself  about  losing  her.  He  hated  Gris 
wold  mostly  for  fooling  him  out  of  some  of  his 
money  and  helping  to  bring  all  this  on ;  but  at  the 
same  time  he  could  n't  help  thinking  he  was  a  fool 
himself  and  that  things  was  pretty  much  his  own 
fault  anyway.  So  you  see  when  he  was  most  ready 
to  pitch  into  Griswold  he  would  think  it  over 
again;  and  when  he  looked  into  what  Griswold 
done  he  would  get  to  hating  himself  at  the  same 
time.  He  was  going  to  have  it  out  with  Griswold 
all  the  time ;  but  his  first  mad  had  worked  itself  off 
and  he  kept  thinking  things  over  and  waiting  till 
the  right  time  come  and  he  saw  his  way  clear.  So 
he  would  stand  up  on  the  cabin  and  look  down  at 
Griswold  and  think  and  think. 

But  instead  of  getting  it  all  boiled  down  on  his 
own  side  he  seen  one  thing  plain  enough  about 
Griswold.  Griswold  was  despisable  and  mean 
enough  no  matter  what  Valdes  had  done;  Gris 
wold  had  it  coming  to  him  anyway.  So  when 
Valdes  stepped  out  of  the  passageway  that  morn 
ing  he  was  going  to  have  a  settling  between  them. 
And  before  he  had  got  started  in  it  was  all  over. 

It  was  kind  of  strange  how  that  happened  right 
then.  It  was  just  as  if  Valdes  come  and  pointed 


188  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

his  finger  for  Griswold  to  kill  himself  and  he  went 
and  done  it.  I  could  see  that  Valdes  kind  of  looked 
on  me  as  the  one  that  was  mostly  the  reason  for  it. 
And  that  made  me  feel  pretty  cheap.  I  guess  that 
was  why  he  talked  it  all  out  to  me  when  he  got 
started ;  I  was  his  partners  in  it.  Well,  I  did  kind 
of  feel  it  was  partly  me.  I  could  n't  help  thinking 
that  maybe  Griswold  was  really  watching  out  that 
I  would  n't  get  drowned  myself;  and  I  felt  kind 
of  bad  about  him,  seeing  he  was  dead.  But  pshaw ! 
I  did  n't  really  have  no  more  to  do  with  it  than 
that  bucket  did,  I  guess.  Not  as  much.  Anyway 
you  can  look  at  it  that  way.  If  he  was  n't  quick 
tempered  and  mean,  and  maybe  thinking  what  he 
would  have  to  settle  with  Valdes,  would  he  'a' 
slapped  that  bucket  down  that  way  and  got 
drowned?  I  bet  he  would  n't.  Anyway  it  was  n't 
ALL  my  fault.  And  I  did  n't  go  to  do  it. 

I  asked  Valdes  how  he  felt  about  it  and  was 
he  glad  he  got  the  best  of  Griswold  that  way. 
"Well,"  he  said,  "no,  not  exactly."  He  was  n't 
real  sorry  some  ways,  either.  He  said  that  was 
the  way  things  went  sometimes  in  this  world ;  and 
he  was  n't  exactly  glad  about  it,  either.  But 
pshaw !  what  's  the  use  of  me  a-trying  to  tell  how 
he  was  feeling  about  everything  when  he  did  n't 
know  himself.  You  could  see  he  did  n't  know  no 
more  than  I  did ;  it  was  too  mixed  up. 

Then  he  rung  the  bell  again;  and  the  nigger 
come  in  a  hurry  and  brought  him  some  more  of 
that  French  whiskey  and  soda.  He  looked  pretty 
worried  and  he  said  he  was  taking  it  to  make  him 
think. 


SAM  MAKES  SOME  FINE  DISTINCTIONS    189 

When  talk  was  beginning  to  run  out,  I  got  up  and 
put  on  my  hat  and  said  I  guessed  we  had  better 
go;  and  Rags  got  up  off  the  bear-skin  to  come 
along. 

' '  Sit  down  a  moment, ' '  he  says ;  and  he  took  out 
a  piece  of  paper  and  the  gold-tipped  pencil  again. 
"Now  about  this  Clancy.  Is  that  his  first  or  his 
second  name?" 

"I  don't  know,"  I  says. 

"Then  you  were  not  very  well  acquainted  with 
him?" 

"I  should  say  I  am,"  I  says.  "I  knew  him  so 
well  that  I  never  asked  him  them  things.  He  's 
acquainted  with  lots  of  people." 

"Who  with— for  instance?" 

"Most  anybody  for  instance,"  I  says.  "He 
knows  you  in  three  minutes ;  he  's  pretty  sociable. ' ' 

'  *  What  's  his  complexion  ? ' ' 

* '  He  's  dark  complected  all  over, ' '  I  says. 

"All  over?" 

"Yes.  From  going  in  swimming  and  being  out 
doors  so  much.  He  says  he  does  n't  know  whether 
he  is  really  dark  complected  or  just  got  tanned 
when  he  was  young.  He  never  give  himself  a 
chanst  to  bleach  out. ' ' 

"Give  me  a  description  of  him.  What  does  he 
look  like?"  he  says. 

"Well,"  I  says,  "he  is  kind  of  stocky  built  and 
pretty  strong.  He  has  kind  of  blue  eyes  and 
brownish  hair.  But  he  can  hold  his  face  most  any 
ways  even  when  he  is  laughing;  he  is  a  josher.  He 
kind  of  swings  when  he  walks ;  but  you  can  notice 


190  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

it  more  when  he  gets  on  his  good  clothes  and  goes 
uptown  holding  his  fists  shut.  Not  like  a  sailor 
though— just  independent. ' ' 

"Oh!"  he  says;  and  he  wrote  it  down.  "And 
has  n't  he  any  relatives  or  a  home?  Did  n't  he 
mention  where  any  of  them  lived?" 

"His  old  man  is  dead,"  I  says.  "But  his 
mother  must  be  living  because  he  sends  money  to 
her.  His  old  man  used  to  lambaste  the  life  out  of 
him  for  doing  things.  And  Clancy  says  he  ought 
to  a-given  it  to  him  harder. ' ' 

"And  don't  you  know  someone  who  cuold  give 
me  this  information?  Who  does  he  know?" 

"Well— most  anybody,"  I  says.  "Some  way-up 
folks  and  some  low-down  ones.  He  says  folks  are 
pretty  much  alike— take  them  in  swimming.  And 
he  looks  at  the  ones  out  of  water  about  the  same; 
just  as  they  come.  Clancy  is  all  right,  though. 
The  girls  in  the  restaurants  always  puts  the  biggest 
piece  of  meat  on  his  plate. ' ' 

"What  restaurant?" 

"Wherever  he  eats  when  he  is  hungry.  But  none 
of  them  could  tell  you  anything  about  him ;  they  'd 
only  say  he  was  a  good  fellow. ' ' 

"And  you  say  he  is  a  close  friend  of  yours?" 

' '  I  should  say  he  is, "  I  says. 

"How  long  have  you  known  him?" 

"It  's  most  two  years  now,"  I  says.  "It  's  that 
long  since  he  went  away.  And  he  never  come  back 
for  Rags  since." 

Valdes  he  stopped  a  while  but  didn't  get  any 
thing  down.  He  seemed  to  be  thinking  about 
something. 


SAM  MAKES  SOME  FINE  DISTINCTIONS     191 

"What  I  mean  is— how  long  DID  you  know 
him  ? "  he  says. 

"  Oh ! "  I  says.    ' '  One  day, ' '  I  says. 

He  thought  a  while  again. 

"And  what  is  his  trade?  Can't  you  tell  me 
that?"  he  says. 

"He  has  n't  got  a  trade,  by  rights,"  I  says. 
"That  is  why  he  mostly  does  things  that  takes  a 
dare.  And  sometimes  it  pays  just  as  good.  He 
come  pretty  near  learning  to  be  a  boiler-maker; 
but  the  boss  did  n't  treat  him  square— so  they 
didn't  get  along.  Then  he  was  fired  and  didn't 
get  no  chanst.  But  he  learned  enough  that  he  got 
a  job  riveting  on  a  stand-pipe  afterwards;  and  he 
liked  that  better  because  it  was  outdoors  and  up 
high.  And  then  he  got  a  job  on  a  bridge ;  which  is 
pretty  good  because  it  is  around  the  water.  Some 
times  he  gets  a  job  himself  and  sometimes  he  takes 
one  from  an  agency — according  to  what  they  have. 
But  he  won't  work  on  a  viaduct,  though.  He 
worked  once  down  in  a  hot  valley  where  it  was  all 
sweat  and  no  swim,  and  he  did  n't  like  it— he  says 
all  bridges  ought  to  be  over  water.  But  what  he 
would  like  to  be — if  he  could  get  into  it — is  a  base 
ball  pitcher.  He  is  good,  too.  He  will  play  any 
of  them." 

After  that  Valdes  did  n't  ask  me  much  that  I 
knew.  So  then  I  put  on  my  hat  again  and  stood  up. 

"He  could  be  a  champeen  swimmer,"  I  says,— 
"  if  he  could  get  into  it.  He  goes  along  right  under 
the  surface ;  and  all  you  can  see  is  his  arms  swing 
ing  up— and  sometimes  his  face  when  he  turns  his 
mouth  up  quick  to  blow.  He  swims  overhand. 


?  7 


192  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

"Then  I  would  n't  be  likely  to  see  him  in  the 
water,  would  I?"  he  says,  kind  of  smiling;  and  he 
folded  up  the  paper  and  put  it  in  his  pocket.  "But 
don't  you  think  you  might  see  this  Clancy  again, 
some  time?  You  might." 

"Well,"  I  says,  "I  could  a-met  him  down  in 
New  Orleans  last  winter.  He  said  he  was  going  to 
be  down  there ;  but  I  could  n  't  get  a  chanst  in  the 
towboat  like  I  wanted — so  I  couldn't  get  down  on 
the  Mississippi.  He  likes  to  have  a  job  in  New 
Orleans  in  winter — when  the  races  are  going  and 
things.  Maybe  he  would  be  down  there  next 
winter. ' ' 

"I  should  say  he  was  something  of  a  sport," 
says  Valdes. 

"Kind  of,"  I  says,  "specially  baseball,  though." 

"Well,  if  you  ever  see  him— if  he  comes  for  his 
dog  or  anything— don't  forget  to  tell  him  that  I 
want  to  see  him.  There  will  be  five  hundred  for  it 
—half  for  him  and  half  for  you.  I  will  pay  you 
for  finding  him  and  give  him  the  same  for  finding 
Mrs.  Valdes." 

That  sounded  pretty  fine  to  me. 

' '  And  what  are  you  going  to  do  ? "  I  says. 

"I  '11  probably  travel  a  good  deal." 

"And  how  would  he  ever  find  you— if  he  came?" 

"Tell  him  to  be  where  YOU  can  find  him— let 
him  keep  in  touch  with  you.  I  '11  get  back  to  see 
you  in  the  course  of  time.  I  '11  tend  to  that. ' ' 

"Well,  good-bye,"  I  says. 

' '  Good-bye, ' '  he  says.  ' '  Don 't  forget  what  I  told 
you.  And  if  you  come  across  that  Clancy  tell  him 
I  am  a— a— a— sport,  too." 


SAM  MAKES  SOME  FINE  DISTINCTIONS    193 

"I  will.  I  am  much  obliged  and  I  had  a  real 
good  time," — so  then  he  come  along  and  showed  me 
the  way  to  the  elevator.  But  I  took  the  winding 
stairs ;  they  go  round  and  round. 


I  took  the  winding  stairs" 


Well,  I  did  n  't  look  in  no  show  windows  on  the 
way  back  to  the  boat  that  time.  I  could  see  five 
hundred  dollars  going  ahead  of  me  all  the  way. 
Gee,  it  would  a-been  easy  to  make  that  money  if 
I  only  knew  how. 

13 


CHAPTER  XY 


THE  WHEEL  TAKES  A  TURN 


HE  second  trip  after  that  a 
sawyer  near  Ninety  Mile 
Rock  took  us  just  above 
the  water  line.  The  en 
gineer  reversed  so  hard 
that  it  kind  of  loosened 
up  the  bolts  in  the  big 
casting  that  mended  the 
shaft  of  the  wheel  where 
it  was  broke  in  the  mid 
dle;  and  that  let  the 
shaft  sag  a  little;  and 
that  kind  of  bound  the  crank-pins  in  the  boxes; 
and  that  give  the  big  driving-beams  a  twist  down 
to  the  engines;  and  that  bound  the  other  boxes 
on  the  cross-heads ;  and  that  bound  the  cross-heads 
in  the  slides  and  made  the  engines  work  hard 
and  stiff  in  spite  of  all  the  oil  you  could  put  on;— 
it  was  like  everything  jumped  at  one  little  excuse  to 
get  out  of  kilter.  The  engineer  said  it  was  a  blame 
wonder  that  that  accident  did  n't  run  up  the  bell- 
wire  and  kill  the  pilot.  Sometimes  bad  luck  is  like  a 
bunch  of  fire-crackers  that  you  only  need  to  light  one. 

194 


THE  WHEEL  TAKES  A  TURN  195 

That  hole  in  the  bows  was  just  at  the  edge  of 
the  water,  so  that  a  little  of  the  river  kept  running 
in ;  but  they  shifted  a  lot  of  wheat  sacks  to  the  back 
of  the  hold  and  the  boat  raised  its  nose  a  little  so 
that  the  water  stopped.  The  engineer  he  tightened 
the  bolts  up  the  best  he  could,  but  he  could  n't 
straighten  the  shaft  right;  so  he  losened  up  the 
boxes  on  the  crank-pins  some,  and  loosened  up  the 
other  boxes  on  the  cross  heads  some,  and  opened  up 
the  slides  some,  and  he  made  everything  wrong  like 
the  rest  that  was  wrong  till  it  was  all  kind  of  right 
—and  then  we  could  go  along  down  stream  slow. 
He  could  keep  enough  power  on  to  make  the  rud 
ders  work,  anyway.  We  had  to  run  even  slower 
than  we  could  so  that  the  water  would  n't  rise  at 
the  bow  and  run  into  the  hole  again  while  the  car 
penter  was  nailing  something  on  it.  We  got  into 
St.  Louis  running  lame  but  all  right ;  and  then  we 
laid  over  for  repairs. 

While  I  was  n't  doing  anything  I  got  kind  of 
monotonous ;  so  I  says  to  myself,  I  guess  I  will  just 
take  another  trip  on  the  Muscoutah— they  all  know 
me  now— and  maybe  I  will  stop  off  at  Aunt 
Liddy's.  And  I  bet  you  ten  dollars  I  will  find  out 
some  more  of  that  story.  So  I  done  it. 

Aunt  Liddy  was  glad  to  have  me  come  visiting; 
'specially  because  I  told  her  all  how  Griswold  was 
dead  and  everything.  But  I  did  n  't  find  out  much. 

"Lawdy, "  she  says,  "I  never  see  a  mo'  scrump- 
tious-lookin '  quality  man  den  Mistah  Valdes  de 
time  he  come  'long  to  Madison  City  wid  his  black 
moustaches.  An'  all  de  white  gals  takin'  notice  of 


196  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

him;  an'  ever 'body  wondering  what  his  kind 
pokin'  round  in  de  bluffs  fo'.  An'  how  de  Colonel 
git  mad  an'  r'ar  up  when  he  see  dat  him  an'  his 
Effie  has  made  up  togethah.  He  call  him  dat  Latin 
man  ;  an '  he  sw  'ar  hisse  'f  red  in  de  face.  He  send 
her  away  to  de  convent.  An'  when  Valdes  come— 
jes'  as  cool— to  see  him  bouten  it,  he  sw'ar  agin  an' 
stamp  his  cane  at  him.  An'  when  he  kaint  sw'ar 
no  more  he  shake  his  cane  twel  he  is  red ;  and  shake 
it  twel  he  is  white  agin.  An'  all  de  time  he  do  it, 
Valdes  stan's  easy  lak  a  gemman  dat  knowed  he 
was  an  ole  fool." 

"I  bet  he  could  hold  himself  in  on  a  game  like 
that,"  I  says.  "I  seen  it  on  the  boat.  He  can 
keep  himself  from  doing  what  he  wants  to." 

"Lawdy,  it  take  HIM  fo'  to  do  dat.  An'  dat 
what  de  Colonel  never  COULD  git  over.  Dat  's  it. 
An'  I  spec's  dat  is  de  hardest  thing  to  scuse  in 
ANYONE.  Jes'  to  be  a  fine  gemman  \vhen  dey  is 
try  in'  to  make  you  r'ar  up." 

Aunt  Liddy  made  the  flat-iron  sizz,  to  see  if  it 
was  cool  enough,  and  went  on  ironing.  And  then 
she  stopped  to  heat  it  again. 

"But  I  kaint  see  why  he  did  n'  go  fo'  Griswold 
—an'  maybe  kill  him.  'Kase  DAT  way  of  over- 
lookin'  things  ain't  NACHEL  fo'  him." 

"Well,  I  asked  him  about  it,"  I  says.  "And  the 
best  I  could  make  out  was  that  when  he  was  getting 
his  mad  up  he  would  get  to  thinking  about  her— 
and  laying  blame  on  himself.  There  seemed  to  be 
something  about  his  wife  that  kind  of  toned  him 
down. ' ' 


THE  WHEEL  TAKES  A  TURN  197 

"Dat  jes'  it.  Jes'  it."  And  she  went  on  about 
her  Effie  and  made  out  she  was  so  good  it  would 
make  anybody  good  to  think  of  her.  And  she 
claimed  that  when  Valdes  would  think  of  having 
her— and  what  SHE  would  think— he  could  n't 
hurt  nobody. 

"And  how  did  you  know  all  about  Griswold?" 
I  says. 

"Dat  he  want  her  befo'  Valdes?  Lawdy!  I 
fin'  dat  out  right  away.  Kase  when  Valdes  come, 
an'  de  Colonel  send  her  away  to  de  convent,  dat 
take  her  f'om  Griswold  too.  Dat  time  I  was 
cookin'  on  de  boat.  An'  one  day  Griswold  come 
to  my  kitchen  doah  an'  he  bring  a  lettah  fo'  me  to 
take  to  Effie  up  at  dat  place,  when  I  gits  to  St. 
Louis.  Kase  he  wa '  n  't  no  steamboat  mate  den ;  he 
turned  out  to  be  dat  aftahwahds.  He  say  de  lettah 
is  from  huh  pa.  An'  he  say  how  I  has  been  huh 
Mammy  f'om  de  first,  an'  how  I  is  de  only  Mammy 
dat  gal  has  got— an'  so  I  was  de  one  to  take  it.  So 
one  night  when  we  is  in  St.  Louis  an'  de  salt-risin' 
bread  is  set,  I  put  on  mah  best  apron  an'  go  up  all 
de  princip'l  streets  wha'  de  policemens  say.  An'  I 
go  past  de  big  place  whah  dey  is  a  light  or  two 
shinin'  out  of  de  flat  side  of  de  big  building— an'  I 
knock  on  de  monst'ous  big  doah.  Bimeby  come  one 
of  de  sistahs  an'  take  me  into  de  li'l  room  fo'  to 
wait.  De  flo'  was  bare  an'  dey  was  jes'  whitewash 
on  de  walls  an'  dey  was  a  row  of  hahd  wooden 
chaiahs.  Dem  chaiahs  was  all  leanin'  wid  dey 
faces  to  de  wall  lak  dey  sayin'  deir  prayers  all  de 
time.  I  take  one  of  de  chaiahs  an'  turn  it  around 


198 


PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 


fo'  to  sit  on;  an'  I  say,  'Sho!  Dis  heah  ain't  no 
place  fo'  mah  Effie.'  IT  look  lak  dey  was  too  po' 
in  de  place  fo'  to  have  a  ca'pet  fo'  de  flo'.  An'  I 
say,  'Dis  hain't  no  good-'nough  place  fo'  mah  Effie, 


She  come  huhse'f  to  see  who  dah 


kase  she  is  used  to  bein'  raised  right— lak  her  ma.' 
An'  I  say,  'De  Gunnel  has  jes'  got  to  look  roun' 
an '  see  wha '  dey  is  a  convent  f o '  quality  gals. '  An ' 
while  I  is  sayin'  dat,  de  mothah-sistah  she  come 
huhse'f  to  see  who  dah.  An'  I  tell  her  I  come  to 
see  Effie,  kase  I  her  Mammy.  She  step  out  an' 


THE  WHEEL  TAKES  A  TURN  199 

make  a  big  gong  on  de  inside  go  ding-dong— it 
soun'  lak  she  is  ringin'  de  injine-bell  fo'  to  staht 
up  de  convent.  An'  a  doah  swing  back  an'  she 
come  in  wid  mah  Effie.  Dat  gal  jes'  so  pleased  to 
see  her  Mammy.  She  say  I  must  n't  worry  'bout 
how  de  house  is  furnish'— she  say  she  doan'  need 
them  things  when  she  is  dah.  An'  she  say  how 
sweet  an'  kind  all  de  sistahs  is.  Then  I  takes  out 
de  lettah.  An'  de  mothah-sistah  take  it  right  outen 
mah  hand  an'  look  at  it.  I  say  it  come  from  her 
pa— but  dey  wa'  n't  no  name  signed.  So  Effie  look 
fo'  to  see.  She  look  ser'ous  an'  den  she  smile. 
An'  den  she  look  ser'ous  agin.  She  say  how  it  is 
from  Griswold  an'  hain't  from  the  Gunnel  at  all; 
an'  she  sit  right  down  wid  us  an'  tell  how  Gris 
wold  ain't  de  one  fo'  her  at  all— an'  how  he  done 
want  to  marry  her.  An'  we  two  say  what  a  good 
gal  she  is  to  tell  all  dem  things  right  out  to  huh 
Mammy  an '  de  sistah. ' ' 

Aunt  Liddy  stopped  and  thought  a  while.  And 
then  she  says : 

"But  Lawdy— She  wa'  n't  tellin'  us  ever 'thing 
at  all.  Kase  look  how  she  got  outen  dah,  an' 
runned  right  away  wid  Valdes. ' ' 

And  then  she  took  time  to  iron  an  apron. 

"An'  you  was  a-racin'  when  dat  man  went  ovah 
wid  de  bucket?"  she  says. 

"Yes,"  I  says.    "We  was  a-going  good." 

"Look  a'  heah,"  she  says.  "Is  you  sho'  dat 
man  is  daidf  Did  n'  yo'  maybe  jes'  leave  him  be 
hind  while  he  is  under  de  water— an'  lose  track  of 
him?" 


200  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

"When  a  man  falls  off  a  boat  and  you  don't  see 
him  when  you  come  to  a  stop  he  is  drowned,  is  n't 
he?'7 

"I  have  seen  'em  what  hain't,"  she  says. 

"Dern  if  I  know,"  I  says. 

We  talked  about  everything  like  that ;  and  then  I 
staid  outdoors  mostly  and  climbed  around  the 
bluffs— because  Rags  was  afraid  of  that  cat,  any 
ways — and  in  a  couple  of  days  the  Muscoutah  come 
back.  But  I  had  n't  found  out  nothing  that  was 
worth  while. 

Them  people  on  the  Muscoutah  tried  to  lay  it 
over  me  on  accounts  of  the  Speed  being  busted. 
And  they  tried  to  make  out  that  she  strained  her 
self  in  che  race.  Then  I  up  and  told  the  Captain  the 
Speed  was  gone  lame  already  when  she  beat  them  to 
a  standstill.  After  that  he  did  n't  say  nothing. 

When  I  got  back  to  St.  Louis  I  found  that  the 
Speed  was  going  to  be  laid  up  longer. 

Seeing  they  had  to  lay  up  and  fix  things  the  cap 
tain  decided  it  was  a  good  time  to  go  at  the  boilers 
and  overhaul  everything  that  had  been  needing  it  a 
long  time.  And  I  thinks  to  myself,  "As  long  as 
we  are  going  to  lay  up,  it  would  maybe  be  a  good 
time  for  me  to  try  and  get  a  job  for  a  trip  to  New 
Orleans  and  see  the  Mississippi."  So  me  and  Rags 
went  down  and  walked  onto  the  Woodland  and  I 
asked  could  I  speak  to  the  captain  if  he  was  n't 
busy.  The  captain  was  a  little  man  with  polished 
boots— but  that  don't  make  no  difference— and 
when  he  found  what  I  wanted  he  looked  around 
and  said,  "Where  's  that  pistol?" 


THE  WHEEL  TAKES  A  TURN  201 

A  man  ran  and  got  an  old  pirate  pistol  that  was 
'big  enough  to  be  a  shot-gun  for  that  captain.  He 
rested  the  pistol  across  his  arm  and  pointed  it  into 
my  face  and  says :  ' '  What  was  that  you  said  ? ' ' 

"I  want  a  job,"  I  says. 


"  «  A  job ! '  he  says,  drawing  back  the  trigger  " 


That  pistol  was  too  old  to  shoot  when  the  war 
was,  I  guess;  anyways,  I  stood  cool  and  did  n't 
wink  with  it  looking  me  in  the  eye  like  I  was  aim 
ing  back  at  him.  I  was  n't  afraid  of  the  pistol. 
But  I  was  awful  afraid  I  would  n't  get  the  job. 

"A  JOB  !"  he  says,  drawing  back  the  trigger  till 
it  clicked. 


202  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

"Yes,  sir,"  I  says.  "I  thought  I  would  like  to 
go  to  New  Orleans  while  the  Speed  is  tied  up ;  and 
I  thought  I  would  come  and  ask  if  you  thought 
you  could  give  me  a  job." 

When  he  seen  I  did  n't  dodge  nor  say  nothing 
more,  he  let  the  pistol  down  and  looked  at  Rags. 

"Will  your  dog  eat  meat?"  he  says. 

"He  will  if  it  's  cooked,"  I  says.  "He  's  a 
smarter  dog  than  maybe  you  think.  He  can  do 
tricks." 

"What  tricks,  for  instance?"  he  says. 

I  spoke  to  Rags ;  and  when  he  seen  I  was  saying 
something  to  him  he  perked  up  his  ears.  I  hollered 
out  the  different  things  for  him  to  do,  and  every 
body  come  around  to  see.  I  made  him  sit  up  and 
lay  down  and  roll  over  and  be  a  dead  dog  and 
walk  on  three  legs. 

The  captain  looked  me  in  the  eye  again  like  he 
was  thinking  it  over. 

"And  can  you  do  any  tricks— like  cleaning  lan 
terns  and  peeling  potatoes  and  such?"  he  says. 

"Yes,  sir,"  I  says. 

"Well,  I  guess  all  them  tricks  is  good  for  a  ticket. 
Say,  Steward,"  he  says,  "take  the  boy  back  and 
have  him  grease  the  smoke-stacks." 

Well,  I  went  down  the  length  of  that  big  cabin 
walking  slow  and  holding  myself  in  so  they 
would  n't  see  I  was  too  glad.  By  the  time  I  got 
back  there  the  cook  had  the  big  skin  off  a  boiled 
ham  and  he  handed  it  to  me  to  grease  the  smoke 
stacks.  I  felt  right  at  home  then. 

"Where  is  the  climbers?"  I  says.    "We  always 


THE  WHEEL  TAKES  A  TURN  203 

use  them  on  the  Missouri — but  it  always  punches 
holes  in  the  smoke-stacks. ' ' 

The  cook  he  gave  me  a  astonished  look  and  laid 
down  the  ham  skin. 

"Maybe  you  'd  just  better  wait  till  there  's  some 
thing  else  to  be  done,"  he  says. 

But  there  was  never  anything  like  that  to  be 
done ;  they  never  tried  to  fool  me  no  more. 


CHAPTER  XVI 


SAM  RUNS  DOWN  THE  MISSISSIPPI 


HAT  boat  was  one  of  those 
big  stern  wheelers  that  is 
only  used  for  pushing.  It 
gets  a  lot  of  big  barges 
and  takes  them  down  river 
ahead  of  it.  Ours  was  be 
ing  filled  with  wheat  at 
the  elevator  and  we  laid 
a  couple  of  days  waiting. 

Well,  I  soon  learned  my 
work  on  the  Woodland ; 
and  one  of  it  was  to  drink 
a  big  tin-cup  full  of  black 
coffee  the  first  thing  in  the  morning:  or  old  John 
would  n't  be  satisfied.  Old  John,  which  was  the 
second  cook,  was  so  kneesprung  you  could  see 
it  through  his  apron;  he  had  been  a  cook  all  his 
life  and  his  slippers  was  all  tramped  over  at  the 
heel.  The  way  he  could  hustle  around  a  Mississippi 
cook -stove  was  a  caution  and  he  was  a  regular  mother 
to  anybody.  He  believed  a  fellow  ought  to  drink  a 
lot  of  black  coffee  the  first  thing  in  the  morning :  it 
was  his  way  of  running  a  steamboat.  When  I  come 
down  from  the  texas  trying  to  keep  my  eyes  open 

204 


SAM  RUNS  DOWN  THE  MISSISSIPPI      205 

about  four  o  'clock  in  the  morning  John  would  keep 
his  eye  on  me  awhile,  and  if  I  did  n't  go  after  a 
while  and  take  a  tin  cup  down  from  the  row  that 
was  hung  up  he  would  get  dissatisfied  and  come 
and  point  up  at  them.  Well,  I  did  n't  like  it;  but 
people  has  their  notions  and  you  might  as  well  do 
it  and  keep  them  feeling  satisfied.  So  I  seen  it  was 
part  of  my  work. 

The  captain  and  his  men  had  that  big  fancy 
cabin  all  to  themselves.  It  was  as  big  as  they  had 
on  the  Natchez  and  could  'a'  carried  a  hundred 
passengers,  I  guess;  but  they  did  n't  bother  with 
none  unless  somebody  took  a  notion  they  wanted 
to  travel  that  way  and  go  the  whole  distance.  The 
captain  sat  at  the  head  of  his  table  like  it  was  his 
big  private  house  on  a  plantation;  the  only  pas 
senger  was  a  fat  man  and  so  he  was  awful  impor 
tant.  Them  men  did  n  't  have  to  take  officers '  lunch 
in  the  texas  or  sleep  up  there;  they  had  the  best 
that  was  going  and  the  big  cabin  all  to  themselves. 

After  a  while  our  barges  was  all  filled  with  wheat 
inside  and  lashed  together  ahead,  and  the  coal 
barges  was  fastened  at  our  sides;  and  then  we 
started  down  the  Mississippi  like  a  big  white  goose 
with  a  bunch  of  little  ones.  The  little  ones  was 
about  as  big  as  canal  boats.  We  did  n't  have  so 
many  niggers  on  that  boat  because  you  see  the  first 
landing  we  made  after  we  left  St.  Louis  was  to  be 
New  Orleans;  that  is  twelve  hundred  miles  down. 
At  New  Orleans  they  would  put  the  wheat  on  ocean 
boats  by  machinery,  so  we  only  needed  niggers  to 
bring  coal  to  the  boilers  and  shovel  it  in  all  the 


206  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

time.  One  of  them  kind  of  stern-wheelers  has 
steered  twenty-five  thousand  tons  down  the  river. 
And  there  was  n't  ever  an  ocean  boat  built  that 
could  take  on  the  load  one  of  them  could  come 
along  with.  You  bet  we  had  a  big  engine-room  on 


"  I  seen  it  was  part  of  my  work  " 


that  boat:  it  was  the  main  thing  on  the  boat;  and 
you  bet  the  engineer  he  shined  it  up  and  was  proud 
of  it.  I  done  a  little  of  everything.  Besides  put 
ting  oil  in  the  lanterns  and  watering  the  pilots  they 
would  let  me  take  the  red  lanterns  away  ahead  on 
the  tow  where  they  would  hang  them  on  each  side 


SAM  RUNS  DOWN  THE  MISSISSIPPI      207 

so  that  the  high-toned  pasenger  boats  could  see  us 
coming  and  clear  out  of  our  way.  And  on  accounts 
of  the  officers  having  the  cabin  I  had  the  texas  all 
to  myself  like  a  little  house  on  top  of  a  big  one. 
And  the  pilot's  house  was  on  top  of  mine.  I  did  n't 
have  much  to  do.  And  when  it  was  done  me  and 
Rags  could  sit  up  in  the  door  of  my  little  house 
and  see  the  States  go  by. 

The  Mississippi  ain't  much.  For  a  hundred 
miles  the  banks  won 't  stick  up  more  than  a  few  feet. 
There  's  trees  all  along  both  sides  a  good  deal. 
Once  in  a  while  you  see  a  town  on  the  bank  and 
pass  it.  The  States  is  pretty  much  alike.  There 
ain't  much  difference  where  they  stop  except  that 
if  you  go  clean  to  New  Orleans  the  weather  has 
changed.  But  that  has  just  come  natural.  The 
main  thing  about  the  Mississippi  is  that  lots  of 
things  has  happened  on  it.  There  ain't  no  scenery 
to  point  at  much;  and  so  there  ain't  much  to  do 
but  talk  about  old  times. 

The  evening  we  started  out  the  captain  called  me 
and  said,  "Do  you  see  that  stuff  hanging  away  up 
there  between  the  stacks?"  I  looked  where  he 
pointed  and  it  was  that  long  gray  moss  that  grows 
on  the  trees  down  South;  and  it  was  hung  for  an 
ornament  on  the  cross-pieces  high  up. 

"Yes,-  sir,"  I  says. 

"Well,  you  are  a  smart  boy,"  he  says.  "Go  and 
ask  the  fat  man  if  he  noticed  that  stuff.  He  will 
want  to  know  something  about  it.  Tell  him  it  is 
from  a  hay-boat  that  blew  up  near  us.  And  that 
is  some  of  the  hay  that  come  down  out  of  the  sky. ' ' 


208 


PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 


That  was  supposed  to  be  a  joke ;  but  you  have  to 
do  what  the  captain  says.  The  captain  was  trying 
all  ways  to  have  some  fun  with  him ;  but  you 
could  n't  get  the  fat  man  to  worry;  he  had  a  smile 
on  his  face  that  would  make  the  weather  change  its 
mind.  The  captain  thought  maybe  this  would 
work.  But  it  did  n't.  The  fat  man  wanted  to 

know  all  about  it  and 
when  I  told  him  he  looked 
up  with  a  smile  on  his 
face  and  said,  "Well, 
now,  IS  N'T  that  inter 
esting.  ' '  The  captain  said 
you  could  n't  get  at  that 
man ;  he  was  too  fat. 

The  officers  would  sit  at 
the  table  and  tell  each 
other  about  the  most  hor 
rible  accidents  and  all  the 
latest  explosions.  The  fat 
passenger  would  listen 
and  smile  and  eat.  And 

then  he  would  smile  and  say,  "Well,  now,  IS  N'T 
that  interesting."  That  man  never  took  trouble 
personal;  he  did  n't  seem  to  know  it  meant  him. 
They  all  had  to  give  it  up.  The  pilot  he  give  it  up, 
too,  and  he  drew  a  picture  for  the  captain.  It 
was  just  a  picture  of  the  top  of  a  pilot-house  stick 
ing  up  out  of  the  water.  Everybody  was  supposed 
to  be  drowned.  On  top  of  the  pilot-house  was  the 
fat  man  standing  all  alone  looking  at  the  river 
flowing  by.  There  was  a  broad,  happy  smile  on  his 


The  pilot's  picture  of 
the  fat  man 


SAM  RUNS  DOWN  THE  MISSISSIPPI      209 

face  and  he  was  saying  to  himself,  "Well,  now, 
IS  N'T  this  interesting." 

Along  toward  evening  we  passed  the  mouth  of 
the  Ohio  where  Cairo  is.  We  had  been  passing 
islands  once  in  a  while,  too.  They  call  them  all 
kinds  of  names— horse  and  dog  and  goose  and  elk, 
or  whatever  they  think  of.  But  below  the  Ohio 
they  give  it  up  and  numbered  lots  of  them;  num 
bers  is  easier  to  think  up  and  you  don't  ever  run 
out  of  them.  The  last  place  I  remember  that  night 
below  Cairo  was  Wolf  Island,  which  was  also  num 
ber  five  in  twenty  miles;  sometimes  the  islands 
wear  out  and  you  have  only  got  the  number  left. 
But  you  have  got  to  keep  the  number  so  that  the 
others  will  come  right. 

Along  about  dark  the  captain  heard  that  one 
of  the  niggers  was  a  good  dancer,  so  he  let  him 
come  up  on  top  with  the  big  nigger  that  could  play 
the  mouth-organ.  The  cook  sprinkled  some  salt 
where  the  deck  would  sound  good  under  his  feet 
and  everybody  come  to  see.  That  big  nigger  was 
good  on  the  mouth-organ;  it  come  natural  to  him. 
When  he  did  n't  feel  like  holding  it  with  his  hands 
he  could  play  it  just  with  his  mouth.  He  wrapped 
his  lips  right  around  it  with  the  ends  sticking  out 
of  the  corners  of  his  mouth  and  him  a-going  it  like 
a  horse  champing  a  bit.  He  would  wrap  his  tongue 
around  it  and  turn  it  so  it  stuck  endways  out  of 
his  mouth— and  it  a-playing  all  the  time.  When 
he  played  high  notes  it  would  pop  out  and  when 
he  played  low  ones  it  would  pop  in  like  he  was 
going  to  swallow  it— and  it  a-playing  all  the  time. 

14 


210 


PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 


And  it  a-playing  all  the  time  " 


He  could  certainly  handle  a  mouth-organ  with  his 
face.  The  nigger  that  was  dancing  got  to  putting 
in  extra  licks  and  dancing  the  variations ;  and  then 
the  mouth-organ  nigger  put  his  hands  to  his  face 
like  he  was  going  to  smother  himself  and  the  mouth- 
organ  to  death ;  and  then  he  played  fancy.  It  would 
go  soft  and  low  a  while  like  you  could  hear  it  com- 


SAM  RUNS  DOWN  THE  MISSISSIPPI      211 

ing  away  off  in  the  distance;  and  then  it  would 
tremble  and  sound  sad  and  get  louder  and  louder 
and  bust  out  like  a  whole  brass  band  with  all  the 
little  horns  a-going.  And  that  buck-and-wing  nig 
ger  was  going  it  like  base-drums  and  sandpaper; 
he  could  dance  all  around  himself  while  he  was 
stomping  and  keeping  time.  The  captain  watched 
every  step  and  liked  it  awful  well ;  but  he  never  said 
it  was  good  nor  nothing.  Captains  dassent.  The 
fat  passenger  stood  and  smiled  broad.  It  was  awful 
nice,  and  dark  as  pitch  with  the  red  lanterns  hang 
ing  on  the  barges  away  ahead  of  us,  and  the  boilers 
flashing  out  like  lightning,  and  the  pilot  sweeping 
the  big  streak  of  light  out  ahead,  and  the  big  wheel 
churning  the  water  behind  like  half  a  dozen  flour- 
mills;  it  was  like  an  evening  concert  in  a  summer 
garden  by  a  waterfall  with  fireworks  throwed  in. 
When  the  captain  had  had  his  fun  out  he  sent 
them  niggers  to  go  and  shovel  coal  again.  And  the 
fat  passenger  he  turned  to  the  captain  and  said, 
"Well,  now,  IS  N'T  that  interesting." 

And  in  about  half  an  hour  we  struck  something 
worth  while.  We  caught  up  with  the  boat  that 
should  have  been  a  day  ahead  of  us;  and  she  was 
lying  helpless  with  her  tow  in  the  middle  of  the 
river.  A  sawyer  had  caught  one  of  the  head  barges 
and  poked  a  hole  into  it.  If  that  barge  had  been 
a  boat  by  itself  it  would  have  been  sunk  long  ago ; 
but  it  could  n't  go  clean  down  because  it  was  tied 
to  its  mates.  The  ones  on  each  side  of  it  was  leaning 
over  toward  each  other  with  the  weight  between 
them;  they  looked  like  two  drunken  men  trying  to 


212  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

keep  another  one  up  and  get  him  home.  That  other 
tow-boat  could  n't  do  nothing  but  stay  and  hold 
things  steady  till  we  would  come  along  and  go  back 
to  Cairo  for  help.  We  left  our  barges  there  and 
turned  back  to  the  Ohio  to  get  a  diver.  But  the 
right  man  was  n't  at  Cairo;  he  had  gone  a  few 
miles  up  the  river;  so  we  kept  on  up  the  Ohio. 
Well,  it  did  n't  look  like  there  would  be  much  doing 
for  a  few  hours  and  I  was  so  sleepy  I  guessed  I 
would  go  to  my  texas  and  lay  down  a  while.  I  went 
to  sleep  and  I  guess  I  must  a-slept  pretty  sound. 


CHAPTER  XVII 


CLANCY  BOBS  UP 


HE  next  thing  I  knew  I 
sat  up  sudden  in  my 
bunk  with  an  awful  rum 
bling  going  on— I  had 
been  dreaming  about  a 
boiler  explosion  and  it 
sounded  like  it  had  come 
true.  I  ran  out  to  find 
out  what  it  was;  I  had 
never  heard  a  noise  like 
that  before  since  we  blew 
up ;  and  I  was  scared.  I 
found  they  was  trying  a 
steam  siphon  to  see  if  they  had  it  working  good. 
We  had  got  back  with  a  diving  scow,  and  the 
diver  was  sitting  on  a  chair  in  the  middle  of 
the  scow  with  our  headlight  turned  on  him  while 
he  was  having  his  head  screwed  on.  The  nig 
gers  was  throwing  in  the  coal  lively  and  getting 
up  lots  of  steam  for  the  siphon.  A  steam  siphon 
is  a  big  steam-pipe  fixed  so  that  it  will  blow  across 
the  mouth  of  another  pipe  that  is  stuck  down  in 
the  water;  it  is  like  a  perfume  squirter  that  is 
called  an  atomizer,  and  when  the  boilers  is  turned 


214  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

loose  it  is  like  forty  thousand  Chinamen  blowing 
water  on  a  shirt.  It  is  a  pump  that  has  n  't  got  any 
time  to  have  works  to  it.  When  you  get  up  close  to 
it,  like  I  did,  it  makes  you  feel  rumbly.  The  water 
comes  up  that  pipe  as  fast  as  it  can  hurry  and  is 
shot  away  with  the  steam  and  knocked  all  to  pieces. 
When  they  spring  a  leak  on  one  of  them  boats  they 
don't  get  a  trumpet  and  holler,  "Man  the  pumps!" 
or  anything  like  that;  and  they  don't  pump  and 
pump  till  they  're  pretty  near  dead  and  wish  the 
boat  would  go  down  and  give  them  a  rest,  and  then 
have  the  pump  break  and  lash  a  spar  on  and  pump 
more  and  give  up  again  and  want  to  lay  down  and 
forget  it,  only  the  captain  tells  them  not  to  get  dis 
couraged  because  land  is  only  a  hundred  miles 
away  and  they  're  doing  pretty  well  and  he  '11  cave 
their  heads  in  with  a  marlinspike  if  they  don't. 
They  don't  do  that  way.  They  get  out  their  per 
fume  squirter  and  cough  it  right  up  and  spit  it 
out.  And  maybe  they  can 't  atomize  some !  they  7re 
so  used  to  being  wrecked  they  Ve  got  it  down  fine. 
When  I  stood  up  close  to  the  siphon  and  found 
I  was  n 't  afraid  to  do  it  they  turned  it  off  some  and 
I  thinks  to  myself,  "I  had  better  go  up  on  top 
where  I  can  look  down  and  not  miss  any  of  the 
rest."  The  copper  head  did  n't  want  to  screw  on 
to  the  fellow  just  right ;  so  the  other  fellow  had  to  un 
screw  it  some  and  try  again.  Its  face  was  just  a  big 
glass  eye;  and  when  they  twisted  his  neck  and  the 
face  came  round  on  the  other  side  again  it  looked 
kind  of  unnatural.  The  headlights  shined  down 
together  through  the  dark  and  lighted  up  just  him ; 


CLANCY  BOBS  UP  215 

it  looked  like  the  big  glass  eye  needed  all  the  light 
there  was  a-going.  When  it  was  on  tight  the  fellow 
put  his  mouth  close  to  the  side  of  the  diver's  head 
and  hollered  into  him.  Then  he  put  his  ear  to  the 
side  of  the  head  and  listened  close.  And  when  they 
had  talked  through  his  head  awhile  everything  was 
all  right  and  the  diver  stood  up. 

He  lifted  one  foot  and  made  it  take  a  step ;  and 
then  he  made  the  other  foot  take  a  step.  It  takes  a 
lots  of  lead  on  a  man 's  feet  to  make  him,  hang  straight 
in  the  current  of  the  Mississippi.  That  way  he 
walked  across  the  scow.  The  wheel  of  the  air-pump 
was  going  round  and  round  while  he  walked  with 
the  long  white  hose  going  like  a  steam-pipe  into  his 
head  and  him  lifting  his  lead  feet  like  he  was  a 
machinery  man.  Well,  I  bet  if  they  had  turned 
off  the  pipe  he  would  'a'  run  down  mighty  quick. 
A  fellow  would  n't  stop  to  think  that  a  man  is  just 
machinery,  too,  till  he  seen  it  with  his  eyes  that  way. 

There  was  a  rope  tied  under  his  arms  and  the 
other  fellow  went  along  with  it  in  his  hands  be 
cause  you  see  he  had  to  hold  the  diver  the  right 
height  in  the  river.  When  they  were  to  the  edge 
of  the  scow  the  diver  got  down  and  pushed  his  feet 
over.  Then  he  let  go  of  everything  and  down  he 
went  kerplunk  into  the  river.  Then  there  was  noth 
ing  of  him  but  the  white  hose  leading  into  the  dark 
water  and  the  wheel  of  the  pump  going  slow  and 
steady  and  the  other  fellow  holding  the  rope  like 
he  was  fishing.  The  men  put  a  big  canvas  over  the 
side  of  the  barge  and  the  diver  got  hold  of  the  edge 
of  it.  Once  in  a  while  you  could  see  the  canvas 


216  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

being  pulled  as  the  diver  worked  down  in  the  river. 
However  he  done  it  down  in  that  muddy  water  in 
the  night  time  I  don't  know— as  big  as  his  eye  was ; 
but  he  got  that  canvas  fitted  down  around  the  boat 
so  that  it  stopped  the  hole.  Then  the  fellow  hauled 
up  on  the  rope  and  the  diver  come  up  like  a  big 
fish  that  could  n  't  help  itself ;  and  they  give  him  a 
hand  and  got  him  on  his  feet.  Then  he  walked 
back  to  the  chair  and  sat  down  with  his  hands  on 
his  knees— and  the  pump  going  round  and  round 
and  giving  him  air  in  the  middle  of  the  night.  I 
guess  he  was  waiting  to  see  if  his  job  would  work. 
By  that  time  the  siphon  was  going  for  keeps. 
One  of  them  is  awful  extravagant  of  steam;  it 
blows  right  out  of  the  boilers  and  takes  more  firing 
than  if  it  was  a  race;  and  the  safety  valve  don't 
get  a  chance  at  all.  The  niggers  threw  back  the 
fire-doors  and  shoved  it  in  steady;  it  was  like 
the  boilers  just  held  their  mouths  open  to  take  in 
the  coal.  I  would  n 't  'a '  missed  it  for  anything.  It 
was  a  great  sight  out  in  the  middle  of  the  night  on 
the  water  with  them  half -naked  niggers  sweating 
in  the  glare  of  the  boilers  and  that  steam-devil 
blowing  out  the  power  and  the  headlights  shining 
down  on  the  white  diver  connected  to  his  breathing- 
machine  and  them  big  tow-boats  with  the  smoke 
boiling  out  of  their  stacks— it  was  better  than  going 
to  a  fire  to  see  all  that  we  was  doing  with  steam 
and  fire  and  water.  I  bet  if  an  Indian  in  1812  had 
seen  that  diver  doing  all  that  out  in  the  middle  of 
the  Mississippi  he  would  'a'  thought  it  was  the 
earthquake  come  up  to  get  air.  I  bet  nobody  would 


CLANCY  BOBS  UP  217 

'a'  had  to  coax  him  to  leave  that  country.  I  was 
pretty  near  scared  of  that  siphon  myself  till  I  made 
myself  stand  up  close  and  get  interested  in  it.  It 
was  blowing  out  the  steam  and  water  all  mixed  up 
and  I  was  awful  glad  it  was  doing  it.  I  staid  right 
there.  I  could  n't  go  away. 

In  a  little  while  we  had  things  so  the  other  tow- 
boat  could  take  care  of  herself :  then  we  let  go  and 
took  our  tow  again.  I  started  to  go  up  on  top  again 
but  old  John  stopped  me  and  took  me  into  the 
cabin  and  made  me  drink  some  coffee  so  that  I 
could  sleep  good.  Our  day  pilot  was  in  there,  too. 
He  said  it  looked  bad  for  the  pilot  on  that  other 
boat  because  it  was  the  second  trip  a-running  that 
he  done  the  same  thing.  We  was  beginning  to  drop 
away  from  there  with  our  tow ;  so  I  ran  up  to  my 
texas  to  take  another  look. 

-When  I  looked  back  the  diver  was  standing  with 
the  diving  suit  let  down  around  his  feet  and  his 
head  beside  him  and  the  headlight  a-lighting  him 
up.  One  of  the  fellows  come  along  and  slapped 
him  on  the  back  and  he  give  the  fellow  a  poke  and 
turned  half-way  around. 

I  would  'a'  sold  out  myself  right  then  for  two 
cents.  That  diver  which  I  had  been  looking  at  the 
outside  of  all  the  time,  and  seen  go  down  into  the 
river  and  come  up  again  and  sit  on  a  chair  right 
near  me  without  me  seeing  the  inside  of  him  till 
right  now,  when  I  was  a  few  hundred  yards  away 
and  had  a  thousand  miles  to  go  before  I  could  even 
start  to  come  back,  was  CLANCY.  It  made  me 
turn  sick  and  disgusted  with  surprise.  He  reached 


218 


PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 


into  his  hip  pocket  and  got  a  plug  and  took  a  chew 
— just  like  Clancy.  Another  fellow  come  along  and 
shook  hands  and  reached  him  a  bottle  which  he  put 
to  his  mouth  and  turned  his  face  up  to  the  light. 
It  was  Clancy.  Then  he  stepped  out  of  the  feet 
of  his  suit  and  walked  over  to  the  little  tool-house. 
I  would  'a '  known  then  it  was  him  if  I  had  n  't  even 
seen  his  face.  It  was  Clancy  a-walking.  There  was 
that  scow  now  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  away ;  and 
there  was  shore  somewhere  in  the  dark,  but  no  more 


It  was  Clancy" 


CLANCY  BOBS  UP  219 

than  a  five  minutes '  swim  for  me.  And  it  would  be 
a  week  before  we  would  ever  get  to  land  and  two 
thousand  miles  to  travel  again  before  I  could  get 
back  here  to  Cairo. 

I  felt  like  jumping  right  overboard  and  striking 
out  for  shore— I  guess  I  could  'a'  kept  from  being 
caught  by  the  wheel  if  I  took  a  good  jump.  But 
Rags  could  n  't.  What  does  he  know  about  wheels  ? 
It  was  n't  no  use  to  think  about  it.  I  wished  I 
had  n't  gone  to  bed  in  the  first  place ;  I  wished  that 
blame  siphon  or  something  had  woke  me  up  sooner ; 
I  wished  I  had  n't  been  called  into  the  cabin  just 
when  Clancy  was  having  his  head  took  off ;  I  wished 
everything.  But  what  good  is  wishing  ?  That  don 't 
get  you  nothing.  We  was  going  right  along  to  New 
Orleans,  no  matter  what  I  wished.  Nobody  don't 
know  how  powerful  steam  is  till  it  's  got  hold  of 
you  like  that  and  taking  you  away  where  you  don 't 
want  to  go  to.  I  stood  and  looked  back  until  there 
was  n't  any  light  left  to  look  at.  Then  I  went  into 
my  texas  and  lit  the  lantern  and  sat  down  on  the 
bunk.  I  started  to  think  it  over— but  what  's  the 
sense  in  talking  about  it. 

I  could  n't  forget  things  long  enough  to  go  to 
sleep.  I  guessed  I  better  do  something  sensible  to 
make  me  forget  it ;  it  was  too  foolish  to  think  about. 
There  was  the  round  top  of  an  old  stool  that  had 
come  loose  from  its  legs  and  I  had  practised  till  I 
could  almost  spin  it  on  my  finger  like  a  minstrel 
man.  So  I  thought  I  would  practise  some  now. 
But  I  could  n 't  keep  my  mind  on  it  right ;  it  would 
go  crooked  on  my  finger  and  start  to  wobble  and 


220  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

fall  down  and  roll  all  over.  Once  it  took  after 
Rags  and  chased  him  under  the  bunk;  then  it 
wobbled  over  and  started  to  run  down  and  went 
rumbledy-bumbledy  round  and  round  so  long  that 
it  scared  him  out  again.  After  that  he  was  awful 
afraid  of  it,  and  I  guessed  I  better  quit. 

I  laid  back  and  could  n't  think  of  nothing  else 
but  the  bad  luck  me  and  Clancy  just  had— only 
Clancy  did  n't  know  about  it.  The  worst  kind  of 
bad  luck  is  the  good  luck  that  you  just  miss.  I  bet 
lots  of  people  has  bad  luck  that  they  don't  know 
about.  And  that  's  lucky  for  them.  That  come 
pretty  near  being  good  luck  for  me  and  Clancy  if  it 
had  n't  turned  out  wrong.  I  bet  if  it  had  been 
good  luck  and  things  all  going  out  of  their  way 
to  bring  us  together  I  would  n't  'a'  sat  up  and 
thought  about  it  at  all ;  it  would  'a '  just  been  nat 
ural.  If  I  have  any  more  bad  luck  like  that  I  don 't 
want  to  know  about  it.  I  could  n't  think  of  noth 
ing  but  the  five  hundred  dollars  we  would  get  if  I 
could  ever  find  Clancy  again  and  he  found  the 
woman  and  we  could  both  find  Valdes— and  what 
I  would  buy  with  the  money.  Gee !  I  bet  I  spent 
thousands  of  dollars  that  night.  I  got  more  than 
I  could  if  I  really  had  it;  because  if  it  was  real 
money  I  could  n't  spend  it  more  than  once. 

There  was  n't  much  left  of  the  night;  and  I 
had  n  't  laid  down  long  when  I  seen  it  was  getting 
gray  outside.  So  I  went  down  and  drank  my  cof 
fee.  When  I  come  out  of  the  cabin  I  noticed  that 
we  had  slowed  up  some  and  was  edging  over  nearer 
to  shore,  and  I  says  to  myself,  ''What  is  this;  are 


CLANCY  BOBS  UP  221 

we  going  to  make  a  landing  ? "  It  was  n  't  that ;  but 
I  soon  seen  what  it  was ;  they  was  going  to  drop  an 
empty  coal  barge.  The  man  was  on  it  already ;  he 
was  getting  ready  to  cast  loose  when  the  time  come. 
I  ran  quick  and  got  Rags  and  took  him  down  there 
and  jumped  aboard.  They  told  me  to  get  out  of 
that,  was  I  crazy ;  and  I  told  them  to  leave  me  alone 
because  I  knew  what  I  was  doing  and  I  must  go 
back  to  Cairo  and  see  that  diver,  he  was  a  friend 
of  mine.  The  tow-boat  shoved  us  ashore  and  kept 
a-going;  and  the  man  got  the  barge  warped  to  a 
tree.  It  felt  mighty  good  to  be  on  land  again  where 
you  can  go  anywheres  you  want. 

I  had  to  waste  some  time  telling  the  man  why  I 
was  going  back  to  Cairo;  then  he  gave  me  some 
lunch  in  my  pockets  and  I  started.  He  said  it  was 
more  than  thirty  miles.  Me  and  Rags  walked  and 
walked  and  at  noon  we  sat  down  in  the  woods  and 
ate  the  lunch.  Then  we  kept  on  walking  and  walk 
ing  with  the  river  in  sight ;  and  when  evening  come 
we  had  n 't  got  nowheres.  I  was  pretty  near  ready 
to  drop  down  and  go  to  sleep  any  place ;  but  I  kept 
on  a  piece,  and  after  a  while  we  come  to  a  farm 
where  there  was  a  haystack.  The  cows  had  eaten 
out  a  hollow  place  in  the  side  of  it  and  we  laid 
down  in  there.  I  could  n't  go  to  sleep  for  a  while 
because.  Rags  kept  hunching.  He  don 't  kick  none 
but  he  is  a  great  dog  to  hunch. 

In  the  morning  when  I  woke  the  sun  was  shining 
bright  and  warm  against  the  haystack,  and  the 
birds  was  chirping  sassy  all  around,  and  the  cows 
had  all  got  up  and  started  to  work  eating  for  the 


222  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

day.  I  had  been  so  deep  asleep  that  I  had  to  lay 
awhile  and  think  up  who  I  was  and  where  I  was 
going ;  then  I  stretched  myself  all  over  and  brushed 
the  hay  off  and  kept  on  a-going. 

When  it  was  about  dinner-time  by  the  sun  I 
come  to  the  Ohio  and  that  brought  us  to  a  stop. 
Cairo  was  over  on  the  other  side ;  and  there  was  the 
diving  scow  tied  up  at  the  bank.  There  was  n't 
any  wray  to  get  across;  and  I  was  so  tired  I  was 
afraid  to  try  swimming.  There  was  nobody  around 
the  scow.  I  sat  and  watched  it  awhile,  and  then  I 
walked  up  the  Ohio  a  piece.  After  a  while  I  come 
to  a  skiff ;  and  when  I  found  the  man  that  owned  it 
and  told  him  who  I  was  he  got  me  something  to  eat 
and  set  me  over  on  the  other  side. 

There  was  n't  anybody  around  the  scow  or  any 
sign  of  anything;  the  door  of  the  toolhouse  was 
locked.  After  I  had  inquired  around  considerable 
I  found  the  boss ;  he  was  leaning  over  a  fence  smok 
ing  and  tying  knots  in  a  piece  of  twine  and  watch 
ing  a  fellow  pour  tar  into  the  cracks  of  a  flat- 
bottom  row-boat;  and  the  smell  of  the  tar  made 
me  awful  hungry  again.  He  listened  to  what  I  had 
to  say  and  then  he  smoked  his  pipe  a  couple  of 
times  and  tied  a  knot  in  the  twine  and  said  it  was 
too  bad  I  had  n't  come  along  yesterday  afternoon 
because  he  thought  Clancy  had  n't  left  town  till 
towards  evening.  I  asked  him  to  tell  me  where 
Clancy  had  went,  and  he  said  he  did  n't  know;  he 
did  n't  say  particular  where  he  was  going.  He 
frazzled  out  the  end  of  the  twine  like  he  was  pick 
ing  tow  and  undid  the  knot  and  tried  it  another 


CLANCY  BOBS  UP  223 

way.  He  did  n't  know  nothing  about  Clancy  ex 
cept  that  he  had  done  the  diving  job  for  ten  dol 
lars. 

I  told  him  I  was  from  the  Woodland  and  how  I 
got  off  of  her ;  and  then  he  told  me  how  it  was  that 


I  sat  and  watched  it ' ' 


he  got  Clancy.  You  see  when  the  Woodland  come 
to  Cairo,  for  help,  the  diving  scow  was  up  the  Ohio 
at  Mound  City.  The  boss  had  to  look  all  over  that 
town  for  the  diver;  and  after  a  while  he  found 
him  with  a  friend  in  a  saloon.  He  was  n't  in  very 
good  shape  to  work  but  he  braced  up  and  bragged 
he  could  do  it;  so  they  took  him  to  the  scow  and 


224  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

fetched  him  along  on  it ;  they  had  to  have  somebody 
to  do  the  job.  While  they  was  dropping  down  the 
Ohio  they  put  the  suit  on  him,  and  the  copper  head, 
and  pumped  air  into  him  to  see  if  he  would  work ; 
they  thought  that  might  get  him  sobered  up.  But 
it  did  n't.  After  they  had  him  in  they  had  to 
poke  and  holler  into  him  and  rap  him  on  the 
head  before  he  would  get  up  and  show  what  he 
could  do.  And  then  he  could  n't  budge  his  feet. 
He  sat  down;  and  they  kept  pumping  him— and 
the  smell  of  whiskey  coming  stronger  out  of  the 
vent-hole— and  he  did  n't  wake  up  to  business  at 
all.  It  worked  just  the  other  way  from  what  they 
expected.  When  he  was  in  there  where  there  was 
nothing  doing,  and  nobody  to  talk  to,  he  got  dis 
interested  and  went  to  sleep ;  and  they  had  to  take 
his  head  off  quick  to  see  what  was  the  matter.  He 
was  getting  drunker  all  the  time.  They  seen  it  was 
no  use;  so  when  they  got  to  Cairo  they  stopped 
there  and  did  n't  know  what  to  do.  Clancy  was 
down  by  the  river  talking  to  some  men,  and  when 
he  found  what  was  wanted  he  said  he  could  do  the 
job.  When  they  found  he  was  n't  a  regular  diver 
they  did  n't  like  to  try  him;  so  he  told  them  he 
could  do  diving  without  any  machinery  and  if  they 
did  n't  believe  he  could  do  what  he  claimed  they 
could  get  somebody  else;  it  was  n't  none  of  his 
funeral.  So  then  they  took  him. 

When  he  was  done  and  got  back  in  the  morning 
early  he  collected  his  ten  dollars ;  and  then  he  was 
around  town  most  of  the  day.  That  was  all  the 
boss  knew  about  him.  But  he  said  maybe  some  of 


CLANCY  BOBS  UP  225 

the  other  fellows  might  know  where  he  was  bound 
for ;  so  he  took  me  along  with  him  and  asked.  One 
said  he  had  probably  gone  to  Pittsburgh  or  St. 
Louis;  but  another  thought  maybe  he  had  gone 
to  New  Orleans;  he  spoke  about  all  them  places. 
They  did  n't  know  nothing  about  it. 


15 


CHAPTER  XVIII 


THE  CONSOLIDATED  AGGREGATION 

)AIRO  is  a  low  monotonous 
place;  I  don't  like  it  any 
ways.  They  call  this  part 
of  the  country  Egypt.  But 
this  ain't  the  Egypt  where 
they  found  Moses  in  the 
bulrushes ;  that  is  a  differ 
ent  one  that  is  in  Europe. 
I  could  n't  rest  much  sit 
ting  on  the  edge  of  a  board 
sidewalk  looking  at  old 
frame  houses,  so  I  guessed 
I  had  better  go  and  find  a 
place  of  my  own.  I  went 
up  the  river  and  seen  a  bush  that  looked  like  it 
would  be  a  place ;  so  I  went  to  take  it.  But 
just  when  I  got  to  the  bush  and  looked  around 
on  the  other  side  I  seen  somebody  already  had  it. 
A  man  was  washing  his  feet  in  the  river.  He 
looked  up  and  said  " Hello,"  and  seemed  pretty 
friendly ;  so  I  sat  down  near  by.  When  he  had  one 
foot  washed  he  took  a  cloth  and  wrapped  it  around 
it,  just  so,  and  slipped  on  a  rubber  overshoe. 

226 


THE  CONSOLIDATED  AGGREGATION      227 

"What  's  the  matter;  have  you  got  a  sore  foot?" 
I  says. 

"Me  have  sore  feet?  Them  's  socks.  Did  n't 
you  ever  see  army  socks?" 

I  told  him  I  had  n't  and  he  said  they  was  the 
only  kind  there  was  any  sense  in. 


"  I  seen  somebody  already  had  it  " 


I  watched  him  wash  the  other  foot ;  he  seemed  to 
be  awful  particular  about  it. 

Then  he  spread  out  a  clean  white  cloth  that 
looked  like  a  handkerchief  and  took  a  corner  be 
tween  his  toes  and  gave  it  turn  one  way  and  a  turn 
another  way,  just  so,  and  slipped  on  the  other 
overshoe. 

"You  seem  to  take  good  care  of  your  feet,"  I 
says. 


228  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

"Don't  I  have  to?"  he  says.  "I  may  have  to 
walk  swords  any  time.  So  I  keep  them  soft.  Soft 
feet  don't  cut." 

Well,  I  never  knew  before  they  had  to  walk 
swords  in  the  army;  but  he  seemed  to  know  what 
he  was  talking  about.  He  said  everybody  ought  to 
wear  army  socks  and  he  explained  about  them. 
Ordinary  socks  wears  right  out  at  one  place  and 
then  they  're  no  good.  These  kind  can  be  changed 
with  a  different  corner  between  the  toes  every  time 
and  wear  equal  all  over.  Ordinary  socks  are  hard  to 
wash  and  then  they  are  hard  to  dry,  because  they 
are  double  thickness  like  a  bag  and  when  you  hang 
them  up  they  won't  dry  quick  on  the  inside.  These 
kind  are  cheaper  to  begin  with  and  can  be  washed 
and  dried  oftener  and  wear  longer  and  are  more 
clean  and  comfortable  on  the  feet.  Besides  that 
they  don't  shrink  and  are  always  your  size.  And 
he  said  when  you  wore  overshoes  like  he  did  to  keep 
his  feet  soft— which  was  on  accounts  of  the  perspira 
tion—it  was  mighty  important  to  have  socks  that 
could  be  washed  out  easy.  He  seemed  to  know  all 
about  feet. 

I  bet  Valdes  would  n't  'a'  thought  that,  He 
would  n't  wear  no  handkerchiefs.  Some  people 
like  one  thing  and  some  likes  another.  People  is 
different.  I  guess  it  is  all  according  to  what  you 
are  used  to. 

"Are  you  an  Egyptian?"  he  says. 

"I  'm  from  Missouri,"  I  says. 

"  Oh !  then  you  are  a  Piker. ' ' 

"No,  I  ain't  no  Piker;  don't  I  talk  St.  Louis?" 
I  says.  "Did  you  just  get  out  of  the  army?" 


THE  CONSOLIDATED  AGGREGATION      229 

He  was  just  stooping  over  tying  two  ends  of 
his  socks  neat  around  his  ankle;  and  when  he 
pulled  up  his  pants  I  seen  blue  and  red  snakes 
and  frogs  all  over  his  legs. 

"Don't  you  see  what  I  am?"  he  says,  pulling 
them  up  higher  and  letting  them  down  to  his  feet 
again.  "I  'm  with  the  show-boat,"  he  said,  point 
ing  farther  up  the  river. 

I  looked  up  there  and  seen  a  big  flat-boat  with 
canvas  hung  around  the  sides  like  a  tent.  When  I 
seen  that  I  talked  to  him  more ;  and  when  he  found 
Eags  could  do  tricks  he  made  right  up  with  him. 

"Stubbs  would  like  a  comical-looking  dog  like 
that,"  he  said. 

"Who  's  Stubbs?"  I  says. 

"He  's  the  clown.  If  you  have  n't  got  any  place 
to  put  up,  come  and  see  the  Professor ;  maybe  he  'd 
take  you.  You  can  get  something  to  eat,  anyway. ' ' 

When  I  got  nearer  to  the  boat  I  could  read  what 
it  said  on  a  strip  of  canvas.  It  said  "Prof.  Lago- 
rio's  Consolidated  Aggregation  and  Floating  Mu- 
see. ' '  Then  I  knew  it  was  a  show-boat  sure  enough. 

The  Tattooed  Man  opened  up  a  split  in  the  can 
vas  and  took  me  inside.  The  Fat  Woman  had  a 
blue-painted  board  across  some  seat  props  and  was 
pressing  the  Giant's  pants.  A  lady  had  her  Cir 
cassian  wig  in  her  hand  and  was  cleaning  it  in  some 
cornmeal  in  a  bowl.  She  brushed  it  around  in  the 
big  bowl  and  rubbed  in  the  cornmeal  and  shook 
it  out  till  her  stand-up  hair  was  all  cleaned. 
The  Giant  was  working  with  a  hammer  on  some 
pegs  that  held  a  sweep.  There  was  some  blue  lum 
ber  for  seats  piled  up,  and  some  chests  and  a  base 


230 


PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 


drum  and  a  barrel  of  gasoline,  with  two  big  burners 
laying  on  top,  and  a  gasoline  stove  to  cook  on. 
Stubbs,  which  was  the  Clown,  had  some  gasoline  in 


The  fat  lady  patted  me  on  the  head1' 


a  pie-pan  and  he  had  some  corks  on  a  wire,  burning 
them  to  get  the  black  off.  The  Fat  Lady  patted 
me  on  the  head  and  was  sorry  for  me  when  she 


THE  CONSOLIDATED  AGGREGATION      231 

found  I  was  hungry;  she  said  it  must  be  awful  to 
be  hungry.  The  Tattooed  Man  told  the  Professor 
about  me  and  then  he  told  the  other  lady  to  give 
me  something  to  eat;  and  Stubbs  he  was  looking 
Rags  over. 

They  was  just  getting  the  Musee  ready  to  start. 
You  see  the  boss  was  n't  a  school-professor  like  the 
one  that  was  on  the  Speed.  He  said  he  was  a  pro 
fessional  professor.  He  had  been  coming  down  the 
Ohio  with  an  Uncle  Tom  show  which  performed  in 
halls;  but  when  he  come  to  the  end  of  the  Ohio, 
where  you  have  to  float  South,  it  was  the  Uncle 
Tom  limits.  He  could  n't  go  an  inch  further  with 
no  Uncle  Tom  and  Simon  Legree;  so  he  let  that 
troupe  go  and  wished  he  had  something  else  be 
sides  him  and  his  wife.  Him  and  his  wife  could  do 
it  all;  they  said  so;  but  they  did  n't  look  like 
enough.  Just  then  a  show  busted  up  at  Cairo,  and 
the  manager  skipped  out  and  left  the  freaks  like  a 
lot  of  orphans ;  so  the  Professor  took  them  in ;  and 
he  decided  to  put  on  a  Musee  because  he  said  the 
Fat  Woman  and  the  Tattooed  Man  would  n  't  rouse 
no  sectional  prejudice  or  Jealousies  in  anybody  as 
far  as  he  could  see.  With  them  he  could  keep  right 
down  the  Mississippi. 

The  lady  that  was  going  to  be  a  Circassian  queen 
was  his  wife.  She  had  been  playing  Liza  and  could 
be  a  leading  lady;  and  when  things  took  a  turn  she 
was  Madam  Zoola,  seventh  daughter  of  a  seventh 
daughter  and  born  with  a  veil.  Her  and  the  Pro 
fessor  knew  their  business ;  they  said  so.  The  Pro 
fessor,  whose  real  name  was  Smith,  was  going  to  be 


232  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

a  magician  and  mesmerizer  now ;  he  had  been  play 
ing  Legree.  He  went  around  in  a  cutaway  vest 
with  a  diamond  in  his  shirt. 

I  liked  Stubbs  the  best;  he  seemed  more  like 
real  folks.  They  picked  him  out  of  the  busted  show 
because  he  could  double  in  brass,  which  meant  that 
he  could  do  most  anything  and  play  the  cornet. 
I  asked  Stubbs  if  the  Professor  and  his  wife  could 
double  in  brass,  and  he  said  yes,  they  had  enough 
brass  to  double  in  anything.  The  Professor  was 
always  talking  about  hustling  whether  there  was 
anything  to  be  done  or  not.  And  when  he  was  n't 
doing  that  he  was  talking  about  how  you  could  n't' 
depend  on  some  people  and  how  they  did  n't  have 
any  appreciation  of  gratitude  and  would  leave  you 
in  the  lurch  the  first  chance  they  got.  He  said 
them  things  mostly  to  his  wife.  But  the  rest  could 
hear  it  and  take  it  to  themselves. 

Stubbs  he  had  Rags  out  on  the  bank  trying  him ; 
and  I  went  out  there,  too.  I  asked  him  what  the 
Professor  was  complaining  about  and  who  it  was 
had  done  him  wrong.  Stubbs  told  me  why  it  was ; 
he  explained  it  right  out.  First  place,  when  he  had 
the  Uncle  Tom  show  he  had  to  rent  halls  and  places 
to  perform  in  because  his  show-boat  was  only  a 
scow  and  did  n't  have  a  house  on  it  that  people 
could  come  on.  But  with  the  freaks  from  the  busted 
show  all  he  would  have  to  do  now  was  to  throw  out 
a  tent,  which  would  n  't  cost  any  rent ;  and  besides 
more  people  would  pay  to  come  into  a  tent  than  into 
a  hall  or  a  boat ;  that  is  human  nature.  So  that  made 
more  profit  and  less  expense.  Second  place  the 


THE  CONSOLIDATED  AGGREGATION      233 

side-show  was  cheap.  The  lanky  boy  did  n't  cost 
nothing;  he  was  just  a  pick-up  that  the  Professor 
had  learned  to  be  the  Human  Dictionary.  The 
Professor  and  his  wife  did  n't  count  for  wages  be 
cause  they  belonged  to  themselves.  It  would  'a' 
needed  three  men  to  run  the  scow  and  put  up  the 
tent,  anyway— which  was  Stubbs  and  the  Tattooed 
Man  and  the  Giant.  And  so  the  Professor  was 
praising  up  all  the  hustlers  that  he  knew.  That 
left  only  one  real  professional  to  pay  for  doing 
nothing — which  was  the  Fat  Lady.  That  made 
less  expense  and  he  got  them  all  cheap  because  they 
were  busted — which  made  it  still  more  less.  That 
was  why  the  Professor  was  complaining  and  finding 
fault  with  folks.  He  was  in  luck.  And  he  was 
afraid  it  would  n't  last.  And  them  people  worried 
him  on  that  accounts.  So  he  was  talking  about 
people's  ungratitude  for  what  you  done  for  them; 
that  is  human  nature,  Stubbs  said.  He  was  n't 
going  to  let  it  get  into  their  heads  that  they  was 
any  object  to  him. 

I  went  back  on  the  scow  and  the  Professor 's  wife 
was  agreeing  with  him  and  sympathizing.  She 
said  it  was  the  way  with  everybody,  and  it  would 
'a'  been  money  in  her  pocket  and  the  Professor's  if 
they  had  never  been  so  good-natured  and  took 
people  in  and  had  just  watched  out  for  themselves. 
She  said  they  had  always  been  imposed  upon  and 
nobody  appreciated  nothing  and  if  it  turned  out  that 
way  again  she  was  going  to  give  up  doing  anything 
for  anybody  again.  She  said  maybe  they  would 
learn  the  lesson  some  time.  The  Professor  he 


234  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

talked  right  out  plain  to  the  lanky  boy  and  hoped 
he  would  know  enough  to  appreciate  the  advantages 
he  was  giving  him  and  stick  to  the  show.  He 
did  n't  let  them  people  forget  that  they  was  busted 
and  he  took  them  in. 

When  they  got  through,  the  Professor's  wife  told 
the  Fat  Lady  that  she  might  come  and  help  wash 
and  wipe  the  pans  and  dishes.  The  Fat  Lady  took 
that  personal.  And  when  the  Professor's  wife 
made  some  remarks  to  herself,  it  hurt  the  Fat 
Lady's  feelings,  and  she  began  to  cry.  She  had  a 
little  handkerchief  with  lace  around  it  that  was  n't 
half  big  enough  for  her  face  and  she  wiped  away 
a  couple  of  tears  and  said  she  had  n't  never  done 
nothing  like  that  in  her  life.  It  hurt  her  feelings 
awful  that  they  should  think  anything  like  that 
of  her.  And  when  the  Professor's  wife  said  some 
more  about  some  people  she  knew  the  Fat  Lady 
got  uppish.  She  said  that  just  because  she  pressed 
the  Giant's  pants,  which  was  only  professional 
courtesy,  they  need  n't  think  she  was  that  kind  at 
all.  She  put  some  powder  on  her  handkerchief  and 
dabbed  the  tear-marks  and  said  she  never  thought 
when  she  was  with  Barnum  and  was  viewed  by  the 
crowned  heads  of  Europe  that  she  would  ever  be 
floating  on  an  old  scow.  Then  she  quieted  down 
and  arranged  her  diamond  necklace  and  started 
up  a  little  fan  about  as  big  as  your  hand  and  looked 
as  uppish  as  if  she  was  a  crowned  head  herself. 
You  bet  they  could  n't  make  her  do  nothing  except 
sit  and  show  herself  professional.  After  that  I 
heard  the  Professor's  wife  telling  him  that  if  she 


"They  need  n't  think  she  was  that  kind  at  all" 


236  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

was  like  some  people  she  could  'a'  been  a  Fat  Lady 
herself.  The  Professor  said  yes. 

The  Fat  Lady  took  that  personal.  And  she  told 
the  Giant  and  Stubbs  how  it  hurt  her  pride  to  have 
the  Professor  make  illusions  at  her  that  way.  And 
Stubbs  said,  what  else  could  you  expect?— Was  n't 
that  a  magician 's  business  ?  He  said  he  thought  the 
Professor  imagined  he  was  playing  Legree  yet  and 
he  hoped  he  would  soon  forget  the  part. 

The  Professor  said  I  might  go  along  up-towii 
with  Stubbs  and  get  some  red  spotted  goods.  He 
said  Stubbs  would  know  what  kind  of  a  collar  a 
clown  dog  would  want.  And  he  held  Rags  back  so 
that  he  could  n't  come  along.  Stubbs  was  a  short- 
built  fellow  and  broad  across  the  back,  with  a 
stocky  neck;  he  was  awful  strong  and  quick.  He 
told  me  not  to  go  into  the  show  business  and  never 
to  be  a  clown ;  he  said  it  took  the  constitution  of  a 
horse,  especially  with  a  wagon  show.  He  had  been 
doing  leaps  over  horses  and  elephants  and  not  get 
ting  good  sleep  and  giving  two  shows  a  day  and 
pulling  up  stakes  at  night  and  being  jolted  along 
in  a  wagon  while  he  rested ;  if  he  was  educated  and 
could  write  a  good  hand  he  would  never  stay  in 
that  business.  But  the  Professor  did  n  't  bother  him 
none;  Stubbs  did  n't  take  that  serious.  Sleeping 
on  a  scow  and  taking  things  easy  would  be  a  change 
for  him ;  and  a  little  tumbling  every  day  or  two 
would  only  be  exercise  for  him,  and  get  him  into 
condition  for  the  big  show  again.  He  said  he  was 
only  going  along  for  fun— which  most  clowns 
would  n't  do.  But  he  got  his  wages  too. 


237 


238  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

When  we  got  back  Rags  was  a  lion  dog;  his  hair 
was  all  lying  on  the  grass.  And  his  name  was 
changed  to  Dom  Pedro.  I  was  awful  mad  at  first. 
But  Rags  rolled  around  and  wiggled  his  back  on 
the  grass  like  he  enjoyed  being  out  of  his  hair  and 
right  next  to  things  that  way;  so  I  seen  it  was 
maybe  better  for  him  to  have  a  haircut.  Besides, 


And  went  to  sleep  " 


he  would  only  have  to  keep  fleas  off  his  ankles  and 
neck  and  the  end  of  his  tail;  so  now  I  was  glad  I 
did  n't  say  nothing  to  the  Professor. 

That  afternoon  Stubbs  and  the  Giant  shoved  off 


THE  CONSOLIDATED  AGGREGATION      239 

the  scow  and  the  show  started.  Cairo  went  float 
ing  past  and  we  came  out  of  the  big  mouth  of  the 
Ohio  into  the  main  waters  of  the  Mississippi,  and 
the  old  scow  turned  south  like  she  knew  the  way. 
We  let  her  go  along  most  any  old  way ;  a  scow  can 
float  sideways  just  as  fast  as  any  other.  It  ain't 
like  a  steamer  that  it  makes  any  difference  what 
its  lines  are.  The  Giant  would  give  the  sweep  a 
push  once  in  a  while  if  things  did  n't  suit  him. 
But  mostly  it  suited  him;  and  if  he  was  smok 
ing  he  would  n't  bother.  We  went  around  island 
number  five,  and  it  was  so  big  the  current  was 
pretty  swift  on  both  sides  and  we  brushed  it 
some;  and  after  a  while  I  noticed  that  the  Con 
solidated  Aggregation  sign  was  on  the  other  end; 
but  that  did  n't  make  no  difference.  We  did  n't 
have  to  bother  much ;  we  did  n  't  draw  much  water 
and  it  was  pretty  good  all  along.  There  was  a 
little  army  tent  which  we  could  sleep  in  and  a 
piece  of  canvas  put  up  to  keep  off  the  sun  and  rain. 
After  supper,  when  it  got  dusk  and  time  to  put  out 
our  light— which  I  mean  that  we  lit  it  and  hung  it 
out— I  was  awful  tired  and  sleepy.  Me  and  Rags 
laid  down  on  an  old  leaping  mat  and  went  to  sleep. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE  PROFESSOR  IN  ACTION 

tHEN  I  woke  up  it  was  just 
getting  ready  to  be  morn 
ing;  it  was  kind  of  hazy. 
Nobody  but  Stubbs  was 
staying  up ;  the  rest  was 
sleeping.  Only  the  two 
ladies  was  in  the  tent;  the 
rest  was  laying  around — 
and  at  first  I  thought  it 
was  the  Giant  snoring,  but  it 
was  n't,  I  guess  it  must  'a' 
been  the  Fat  Lady.  We 

was  moving  along  swift,  but  there  was  n't  much 
to  show  it;  the  trees  along  the  shore  was  only 
half  come  out  of  the  night.  You  can't  hang 
your  hand  over  the  side  of  a  scow  and  see  the 
water  ripple  against  it;  you  and  the  water  is  mov 
ing  along  together.  Some  ways  a  scow  is  like  sail 
ing,  only  it  is  more  that  way.  You  can  see  the 
shapes  ashore  moving  along  past  and  no  waves  from 
the  boat  and  it  all  quiet  and  still,  except  the  snor 
ing  ;  it  is  like  God  pushing  you  along. 

After  a  while,  when  the  Pat  Lady  crawled  out  of 
the  tent  with  her  hair  all  tied  up  in  curl  papers,  we 

240 


THE  PROFESSOR  IN  ACTION  241 

had  Breakfast ;  and  while  we  was  eating  New  Mad 
rid  come.  So  we  shoved  in. 

Me  and  the  lanky  boy  went  out  to  distribute  bills. 
When  we  come  back  they  had  the  tent  all  up,  with 
little  flags  a-flying;  it  was  all  circusy.  People  was 
commencing  to  come  around  and  gawp,  specially 
boys.  They  followed  me  around  and  looked  at 
Rags  and  wondered ;  and  the  men  looked  at  the  big 
painting  of  the  snake  charmer.  The  Professor  got 
that  from  the  other  show,  and  he  picked  it  out  be 
cause  we  did  n't  have  no  charmer,  and  so  he  said 
it  would  be  an  addition  to  the  features.  The  Giant 
and  the  Fat  Lady  had  to  stay  on  the  boat  together 
till  the  tent  was  ready  because  people  could  'a'  seen 
them  for  nothing  if  they  walked  around.  But  the 
Tattooed  Man  could  go  around  in  his  clothes ;  he 
did  n't  need  a  tent  to  hide  him. 

I  found  out  all  about  New  Madrid.  That  is 
where  the  big  earthquakes  happened  in  1811  and 
1812.  That  was  an  awful  big  accident.  Thousands 
of  acres  sunk  right  down  and  the  river  run  in  and 
made  lakes  and  marshes  that  was  n't  there  before, 
and  the  bury  ing-ground  was  jolted  off  the  town 
and  went  into  the  river— the  whole  geography  was 
changed  forever  and  is  that  way  now.  It  busted 
up  the  town  and  all  around.  The  bottom  of  the 
river  was  bulged  up  so  that  it  stopped  the  water, 
and  the  Mississippi  started  to  flow  the  other  way 
and  go  back  where  it  came  from.  I  did  n't  believe 
it  at  first;  but  it  is  so.  Islands  was  wrecked  and 
sunk  and  when  they  went  down  they  dragged  along 
the  boats  that  was  tied  to  them.  But  them  was  n't 

16 


242 


PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 


steamboats;  I  found  that  out.    Steamboats  was  n't 
out  there  yet ;  they  was  keelboats. 

There  was  Indians  left  there  yet  when  that  hap 
pened;  Stubbs  knew  about  that.  A  man  told  him 
how  it  was.  After  one  of  the  earthquakes,  when 
the  rumpus  was  all  over  for  a  while,  an  old  Indian 
he  stood  and  looked  mighty  solemn  about  what  had 
happened.  And  then  he  says  to  himself,  "  Great 
Spirit  too  much  whiskey." 


^•v^il  ((/ 


Her  hair  all  tied  up  in  curl  papers 


THE  PROFESSOR  IN  ACTION  243 

Gee!  I  bet  there  would  be  something  doing  if 
anything  like  that  ever  happened.  I  got  to  feeling 
pretty  serious  when  I  heard  that  and  got  to  think 
ing  about  it.  But  if  there  was  ever  going  to  be 
another  I  would  like  to  come  in  a  balloon  and  see 
it,  though. 

Stubbs'  part  of  the  show  was  to  come  outside 
and  give  a  free  performance— just  to  be  liberal  and 
make  people  see  how  much  we  must  have  inside. 
He  was  the  one  that  done  most  to  make  the  show 
pay.  I  was  awful  afraid  they  would  n  't  keep  me  and 
Rags  with  the  show  on  account  of  him  being  so  deaf. 

But  it  was  just  the  other  way;  Stubbs  turned 
that  right  into  new  tricks.  You  see,  Rags  would  sit 
up  as  long  as  you  wanted  him  to ;  and  he  would  n 't 
get  down  and  do  something  else  till  you  hollered  it 
loud  to  him.  Well,  Stubbs  made  folks  imagine  that 
his  clown  dog  was  a  dog  that  did  n't  believe  in  work 
ing  unless  his  boss  did ;  so  Stubbs  would  tell  him,  in 
an  ordinary  voice,  to  do  things  and  Rags  would  n 't. 
You  could  n't  coax  him  to  move;  he  would  just  sit 
up  and  keep  looking  at  the  folks.  Then  Stubbs 
would  throw  a  somersault  and  holler  louder  at 
Rags — just  like  he  was  catching  his  breath  and  done 
it  natural— and  then  Rags  would  roll  or  do  any 
thing  he  said.  It  made  everybody  tickled  to  see 
a  dog  that  was  so  intelligent  and  had  notions  of  his 
own ;  they  did  n 't  know  it  was  because  he  was  kind 
of  deaf  and  had  Missouri  mud  in  his  ears.  Stubbs 
said  to  me  that  there  is  good  in  everything  in  the 
world  if  you  only  learned  to  see  it.  He  had  heard 
it  said  and  it  was  pretty  true. 


244  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

The  main  luck  we  had  was  at  night,  because  then 
the  news  had  had  all  day  to  get  around  into  the 
country.  They  come  on  horses  and  old  spring 
wagons  and  on  foot  and  all  stood  a-gawping  at  the 
big  burner  blazing  outside  and  the  tent  all  lit  up 
with  the  one  inside  shining  through— it  was  pretty 
thin. 

The  show  was  most  ready  to  start  up.  While 
the  curiosities  was  getting  onto  their  platforms  the 
Professor  was  telling  Stubbs  to  get  ready  to  do  his 
best  because  there  was  a  big  crowd  if  he  could  only 
get  them  to  come  in.  Stubbs  he  leaned  against  the 
center-pole  looking  sad  and  solemn  till  everything 
was  ready;  then  the  lanky  boy  started  to  turn  the 
grind-organ  and  the  Professor's  wife  stood  in  her 
Circassian  hair  and  beat  the  drum  in  time  with  it— 
you  'd  'a'  thought  there  was  a  whole  brass  band 
started  up  inside  the  tent.  Then  Stubbs  put  on  his 
broad  smile  all  of  a  sudden,  ready  to  go  to  work. 
He  ran  to  the  door  of  the  tent  and  come  out  of  it 
on  a  back  somersault  and  threw  a  row  of  flip-flaps 
through  that  crowd  that  made  them  all  stand  back. 
He  could  throw  spotters  and  gainers  and  twisters ; 
he  was  as  good  as  Quigley  or  anybody  in  Barnum 
and-  you  bet  he  let  them  folks  see  it.  He  come 
down  springy  like  a  rubber  man  and  took  his  hat 
out  of  his  pocket  and  introduced  his  dog  and  stated 
that  he  was  the  greatest  thing  that  ever  happened 
since  the  earthquake ;  he  flattered  them  up  on  New 
Madrid  and  made  them  laugh  and  got  off  all  his 
jokes  about  if  a  little  lemon  is  sour  a  big  one  is 
sourourer— which  was  joke  number  six— and  more 


THE  PROFESSOR  IN  ACTION 


245 


funny  stuff  than  you  'd  think  he  could  ever  learn. 
Kags  was  sitting  up  and  looking  solemn ;  and  while 


"And  come  out  of  it  on  a  back  somersault" 


Stubbs  was  getting  his  breath  back  he  would  do 
funny  things  with  him;  he  could  get  more  out  of 
Rags  than  I  ever  could. 


246  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

Then  he  threw  gainer  flip-flaps— which  he  turned 
backward,  but  went  forward  the  wrong  way  from 
what  you  think  he  would— and  threw  down  his 
hat  and  done  a  spotter  right  onto  it,  and  put  it  into 
his  pocket  again.  He  kept  his  hat  in  his  baggy 
pocket  and  only  took  it  out  to  be  polite  or  spin  it 
on  a  stick.  Once  he  let  it  fly  off  the  stick  and  go 
way  off  into  the  crowd,  and  everybody  rushed  to 
get  it,  and  two  men  brought  it  to  him ;  and  he  was 
awful  polite  when  they  handed  it  to  him  (lots  of 
the  people  went  into  the  show  just  on  accounts  of 
that).  He  got  awful  well  acquainted  with  them 
and  done  a  leap  which  he  come  down  on  the  back 
of  his  neck  like  it  was  an  accident  and  everybody 
was  pleased  about  what  a  dern  fool  he  was.  When 
he  had  them  people  just  right  he  ran  out  and  called 
their  attention  and  showed  them  what  he  really 
could  do ;  he  done  a  spotter-twister,  which  is  about 
the  limit,  and  took  a  start  and  went  back  into  that 
tent  like  a  whirligig,  with  Rags  yapping  and  bark 
ing  and  wagging  his  tail  after  him. 

Just  as  Rags  went  into  the  tent  the  Professor 
jumped  up  on  his  ticket  platform  and  rolled  his 
sleeves  away  back  on  his  striped  cuffs  and  orated 
so  that  you  could  'a'  heard  him  a  mile.  And  all 
the  time  he  talked  he  jingled  a  box  of  brass  checks 
like  money  was  common  and  the  show  was  a  great 
success ;  he  got  me  interested,  too.  He  said  how  we 
had  Zuleeka,  the  only  genuine  Circassian  Princess 
in  the  known  world;  and  Madam  Albion,  the 
largest  and  biggest  lady  ever  born  and  just  from 
her  European  triumph;  and  Monsieur  de  Varden, 


THE  PROFESSOR  IN  ACTION  247 


"  « We  have  them  all'  " 


the  great  explorer  who  was  tattooed  by  the  Mozam 
bique  Islanders;  and  the  Gigantic  Gulliver,  the 
man  who  never  stopped  growing  and  was  now  in 
the  eighth  foot  of  his  height. 

"Come  in,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen,  and  bring  the 


248  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

little  ones.— Step  right  up  and  get  your  ticket  for 
the  great  moral  and  elucidating  show.  We  have 
the  great  Eureka,  the  Human  Dictionary— see  the 
phonetic,  linguistic,  orthographic  wonder,  the 
nemonic  mental  marvel  of  the  universe.  See  nature 
in  her  most  marvelous  creations,  her  wildest  flights 
of  fancy— we  have  them  all,  we  have  them 
A-A-L-L-L.  See  the  mirth-provoking  Pico,  the 
highest  salaried  joker  in  the  amusement  world— 
see  Dom  Pedro— see  Zuleeka— see  Madam  Albion 
—you  have  heard  of  them  all  your  lives  and  here 
they  are.  See  the  Circassian  Princess,  the  only 
living  representative  of  the  Caucasian  race— see 
the  living  picture-gallery;  look  him  over,  look  him 
over.  Get  your  change  ready  and  keep  a-moving; 
it  is  the  last  and  only  performance  in  the  city  of 
New  Madrid." 

He  had  me  gawping,  too.  He  blowed  that  tent 
so  full  of  wonder  that  you  'd  most  expect  to  see  it 
go  up  like  a  balloon  if  it  was  n  't  tied  down.  I  had 
to  go  in  and  take  another  look  at  that  show  myself. 
I  could  hardly  believe  I  had  been  laying  around 
and  eating  with  that  circus  and  thinking  they  was 
just  common  trash.  The  crowd  began  to  come 
forward;  and  when  one  man  bought  a  ticket  they 
kept  a-coming  as  fast  as  he  could  talk  and  make 
change.  When  they  began  to  come,  the  Circassian 
Princess,  which  was  the  Professor's  wife,  dropped 
the  base  drum  and  ran  and  got  on  her  platform. 
Then  the  lanky  boy  shoved  the  hand-organ  into 
my  hands  and  got  onto  his  platform.  That  show 
was  awful  short  of  hands  and  they  needed  me.  I 


THE  PROFESSOR  IN  ACTION  249 

never  thought  I  could  play  so  good  on  the  hand- 
organ  before ;  it  made  me  feel  like  the  whole  circus. 
And  with  the  Professor  and  the  hand-organ  going 
it  together,  and  the  money  clinking  in  the  box,  the 
Consolidated  Aggregation  was  started  up  full  blast. 
The  people  stood  around  Rags  in  his  clown  collar 
and  wondered  at  him,  too. 

A  circus  ain't  much  when  it  is  folded  up  and 
put  in  a  box.  But  when  it  is  all  spread  out  and 
filled  with  light  and  talk  it  most  takes  you  off  your 
feet. 

We  done  good  at  that  place.  By  the  time  we  had 
got  things  loaded  on  the  flat-boat  and  ready  to 
shove  out,  the  night  was  half  gone.  I  kept  sitting 
up ;  I  could  n't  go  to  sleep.  The  lanky  boy  was  on 
watch  and  he  was  so  sleepy  that  he  kept  a-nodding 
on  his  stool.  But  sometimes  he  would  get  up  and 
give  the  sweep  a  push.  You  see  you  can't  steer  a 
flatboat  by  just  holding  a  rudder  one  side  or  an 
other;  you  are  just  standing  still  in  the  water  and 
going  along  with  it,  so  it  would  n't  answer  a  rud 
der  if  you  had  one.  It  would  n't  do  no  more  good 
than  to  turn  the  rudder  of  a  steamboat  that  ain't 
running.  So  you  row  the  end  around  with  a  sweep, 
which  is  an  oar  so  big  and  long  that  you  start  on 
one  side  of  the  boat  and  walk  clear  across  to  the 
other  side  leaning  against  it  and  pushing  slow  and 
hard ;  and  it  takes  hard  pushing  because  when  you 
ain  't  got  power  on  the  boat  you  've  got  to  put  power 
in  the  rudder.  Then  it  don 't  do  no  good ;  you  can 
only  change  the  direction  you  are  pointing.  And 
that  don't  make  no  difference;  you  '11  go  straight 


250  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

down  the  river  no  matter  which  way  you  're  point 
ing.  But  with  a  big  long  raft  of  logs  it  makes  a 
difference,  because  if  you  let  that  go  sideways  or 
catacornered  it  would  take  up  too  much  room  in 
the  river  and  folks  would  be  mad.  But  our  boat 
was  about  as  wide  as  it  was  long  and  so  it  did  n't 
make  any  difference  as  long  as  we  did  n  't  care.  And 
we  did  n't.  What  's  the  use  a-working  all  the  time 
just  to  keep  a  favorite  end  ahead? 

Them  oar-rudders  is  on  everything  that  ain't  got 
power  and  all  they  're  good  for  is  to  keep  things 
going  the  narrow  way  so  that  the  Mississippi  don't 
get  too  crowded.  But  when  you  use  two  sweeps  you 
can  row  sideways,  and  that  is  how  you  get  ashore — 
unless  it  is  shallow  enough  to  pole.  We  did  n't 
work  much  except  to  make  a  landing ;  then  we  had 
to.  But  you  don 't  really  steer  with  one. 

Someways  I  felt  just  like  going  to  sleep ;  but  my 
mind  was  so  full  of  the  show  yet  I  could  n't  do  it. 
The  most  wonderful  thing  was  the  Human  Dic 
tionary.  The  lanky  boy  had  a  dictionary  which  the 
Professor  would  hand  out  into  the  crowd  and  let 
anyone  open  it  any  place  and  put  his  finger  on  a 
word.  And  no  matter  what  word  it  was  the  lanky 
boy  could  say  off  the  definition  and  tell  what  page 
it  was  on  and  how  many  lines  from  the  top  or  any 
thing  about  it.  He  knew  the  dictionary  all  by 
heart.  Nobody  did  n't  know  what  to  think  of  that. 
And  neither  did  I.  Someways  I  had  been  thinking 
the  lanky  boy  was  a  kind  of  a  fool ;  but  I  guess  his 
brains  all  went  to  memory.  I  sat  there  and  looked 
at  the  lanky  boy  nodding  on  his  stool  and  kept 


THE  PROFESSOR  IN  ACTION  251 

a-wondering.  I  would  n't  V  thought  it  was  in 
him. 

When  it  was  about  dawn  I  guessed  I  had  better 
take  a  swim  and  that  would  quiet  me  down  and 
warm  me  up  and  make  me  stop  thinking  and  feel 
dozy  like  it  always  does.  So  me  and  Rags  went  in ; 
and  it  was  fine  because  I  did  n't  have  to  swim 
against  the  current  to  keep  from  being  carried  away 
from  the  place  where  my  clothes  was.  When  you 
and  the  current  and  your  clothes  are  going  along 
together  it  is  like  swimming  in  dead  water;  you 
would  n't  know  there  was  a  swift  current  in  the 
Mississippi  at  all  unless  something  passed  you  that 
was  standing  still.  I  never  swum  in  no  dead  water, 
but  it  must  be  fun;  you  can  just  lazy  around  and 
go  one  direction  as  good  as  another.  I  come  out 
and  pulled  Rags  up  on  the  scow  and  he  shook  him 
self  and  felt  fine.  And  when  he  shook  he  did  n't 
throw  water  all  over  everything  like  he  used  to,  be 
cause  he  had  a  haircut.  It  was  a  big  mistake  to 
make  all  the  swimming  dogs  long-haired.  Then  we 
went  to  sleep. 

We  did  n't  get  to  the  next  place  that  was  worth 
while  till  late  in  the  afternoon;  so  we  decided  we 
better  lay  still  and  spend  the  time  advertising  for 
to-morrow.  Me  and  the  lanky  boy  went  out  with 
bills  again.  He  went  into  a  saloon  and  got  sepa 
rated  from  me  and  when  I  got  back  to  the  show  he 
was  n't  there  yet.  He  did  n't  come  home  to  sleep. 
The  next  morning  when  the  Professor  could  n  't  find 
him  he  was  awful  mad.  He  started  right  in  to 
talk  about  people  that  did  n't  appreciate  nothing 


252  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

and  that  could  n't  be  depended  upon.  It  was  in 
teresting  to  hear  him  talk;  and  after  I  had  seen 
what  kind  of  a  speech  he  could  make  I  liked  to  hear 
him  start  up.  He  orated  about  ingratitude  as  good 
as  if  there  was  a  whole  crowd. 

Right  in  the  middle  of  his  goings-on  he  stopped 
short.  He  looked  at  me.  He  did  n't  say  another 
word;  he  just  crooked  his  finger  and  motioned  me 
to  come  to  one  side.  He  fixed  a  board  and  told  me 
to  sit  down  beside  him.  He  said  I  looked  like  a 
boy  that  could  be  depended  upon  and  trusted  with 
a  secret. 

"How  would  you  like,"  he  says,  "to  be  a  human 
dictionary  and  make  lots  of  money  ? ' ' 

"Me!"  I  says.  "Why,  I  don't  know  half  the 
words  in  the  dictionary. ' ' 

"Oh,  yes,  you  do.  I  could  teach  you  that  all 
right.  I  notice  that  you  can  read  all  the  big  words 
on  the  handbills,  and  you  are  pretty  smart  even  if 
you  do  look  a  little  slow.  I  will  give  you  five  dol 
lars  a  week  and  you  can  have  your  transportation 
and  all  traveling  expenses  and  be  a  member  of  the 
troupe. ' ' 

"Well,"  I  says,  "I  would  like  that  mighty  well 
if  I  could  do  it.  Maybe  you  better  give  me  the 
dictionary  and  I  '11  study  it  a  few  weeks  and  see  if 
I  can  learn  enough  to  suit  you.  But  it  would  take 
me  a  long  time  to  get  it  all  by  heart." 

1 '  Pshaw  ! "  he  says.  ' '  It  would  n  't  take  a  fellow 
like  you  more  than  a  day.  It  only  took  that  long- 
legged,  thin-nosed,  nefandous,  necromantic,  nebu 
lous  gander-heels  that  I  picked  up  and  put  on  his 


THE  PROFESSOR  IN  ACTION  253 

feet  in  the  world  and  treated  like  a  high-class  curi 
osity  and  done  everything  I  could  for  and  then  got 
done  dirty  for  it— it  only  took  him  three  days." 


How  would  you  like  to  be  a  human  dictionary 


I  felt  like  a  plum'  fool.  Here  I  was  talking  to  a 
man  that  was  so  smart  he  thought  everyone  else 
was  the  same.  I  was  away  up  out  of  my  own  class 
of  folks.  I  guessed  I  had  better  go  back  to  the  Mis 
souri  and  learn  the  channel.  If  I  ever  struck  one 
of  them  snags  in  the  dictionary  it  would  be  all  off 


254  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

with  me.  And  then  I  thinks  to  myself  there  is 
never  no  use  not  to  try;  if  he  thinks  I  am  smart 
enough  let  him  go  on  till  he  finds  out  for  himself. 
I  told  him  I  guessed  five  dollars  was  a  pretty  fair 
offer  and  if  he  was  going  to  teach  me  I  was  ready 
for  him  to  start  in. 

Well,  I  was  surprised.  Every  leaf  in  that  dic 
tionary  was  the  same.  I  did  n't  see  how  me  and 
everybody  had  been  fooled  that  way.  But  I 
guessed  I  would  take  the  five  dollars  a  week  till 
everybody  in  the  country  found  it  out.  I  started 
right  in  to  study  hard  on  them  two  pages ;  but  the 
Professor  said  it  was  foolish  to  go  at  it  like  that. 
And  he  showed  me  an  easy  way  to  do  it. 

I  kept  on  and  I  learned  nefandous,  which  is 
something  that  ain't  fit  to  be  spoken  of,  and  I 
learned  nefarious  and  necromantic  and  nebulous — 
they  was  all  in  the  N's— and  in  a  couple  of  hours 
I  knew  that  dictionary  all  by  heart.  You  could 
open  it  any  place.  But  you  could  n't  stick  me.  I 
wanted  to  begin  performing  right  that  afternoon. 
But  the  Professor  said  I  better  get  good  on  the 
numbers. 

That  afternoon,  when  everybody  had  given  up 
their  money,  the  Professor  told  them  how  the 
Human  Dictionary  was  down  with  a  touch  of  brain 
fever;  but  he  expected  to  have  him  on  his  feet  by 
night,  and  they  had  better  come  again  to  see  this 
marvel  of  the  century.  And  by  night  I  knew  it  all. 
Old  gray-haired  men  looked  up  and  wondered. 
Smart  people  did  n't  know  what  to  make  of  it. 
They  just  liked  to  wonder.  It  seemed  foolish  to 


THE  PROFESSOR  IN  ACTION  255 

me ;  but  when  everybody  told  each  other  how  nature 
done  them  things  and  how  great  I  was— and  things 
more  wonderful  that  they  had  seen  and  knew  was 
true— I  commenced  to  feel  wonderful  myself.  I 
could  n't  hardly  believe  it. 

We  done  well  at  that  place  and  made  another 
stand  by  the  next  afternoon.  That  place  was  pretty 
much  the  same  and  the  next  place  and  the  next ;  I 
got  so  used  to  the  show  that  I  knew  everything  that 
was  coming.  Rags  did,  too ;  but  Rags  did  n  't  know 
they  was  the  same  old  jokes,  so  he  enjoyed  his  work 
all  the  time.  I  knew  all  the  Professor's  talk,  and 
he  said  he  was  the  best  show  barker  in  the  business ; 
and  I  knew  all  of  Stubbs's  jokes,  which  he  said  he 
would  n't  change  for  anything  because  they  had 
been  reliable  for  years,  and  I  knew  the  numbers  of 
them ;  what  I  had  learned  of  the  dictionary  was  n 't 
nothing.  Rags  got  to  know  so  much  that  when 
Stubbs  would  lean  up  against  the  center-pole  and 
look  solemn  and  responsible,  just  before  he  went 
out  to  get  off  his  jokes  again,  Rags  would  jump 
around  and  bark  and  yap  at  him  to  hurry  him  up ; 
he  liked  the  tumbling.  The  Professor  said  that 
Rags  was  a  good  barker;  he  made  the  people  think 
there  was  a  whole  dog-show  inside. 

The  Professor  gave  me  my  first  week's  wages  at 
the  end  of  the  second  week ;  he  said  he  always  had 
to  hold  back  a  week  on  his  performers  and  keep  it 
in  trust  for  them.  Well,  when  I  started  to  get 
money  for  acting  I  got  to  thinking  whether  it  was 
enough  money.  I  seen  the  Professor  about  it  and 
told  him  that  Rags  was  n 't  getting  nothing.  I  told 


256  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

him  it  was  n't  right  for  a  dog  to  be  performing 
regular  and  doing  his  best  and  him  not  getting  a 
cent  for  it.  I  said  I  thought  Rags  ought  to  get  any 
ways  maybe  two  dollars  a  week.  The  Professor  he 
looked  at  me  a  while  and  did  n't  say  nothing.  I 
thought  he  was  going  to  lecture  about  ingratitude 
again. 

"Seven  dollars  a  week,"  he  says.  "A  DOLLAR 
a  DAY.  And  board  and  transportation.  There  's 
no  end  of  expenses. ' ' 

But  he  thought  a  little  longer  and  then  said  all 
right ;  he  guessed  he  could  manage  it.  At  the  end 
of  the  third  week  he  give  me  both  our  wages.  But 
the  next  day  he  could  n  't  make  change  and  so  I  had 
to  let  him  take  six  dollars  and  a  half  back  again. 

We  passed  all  kinds  of  boats  and  some  that  you 
could  hardly  call  boats;  most  anything  will  do  to 
float  down  the  Mississippi.  Sometimes  it  was  a  big 
long  raft  of  logs  with  three  or  four  men  to  work 
the  sweeps  and  a  tent  to  live  in  like  they  were  camp 
ing  out  on  the  river ;  sometimes  a  big  passenger 
side-wheeler  with  open-work  like  lace  on  her  paddle- 
boxes  and  scallops  on  the  ends  of  her  stacks  and 
her  all  togged  up  like  you  expect  to  see  a  Southern 
boat  in  a  fancy  white  dress  with  only  a  little  of  her 
hull  a-showing  and  kicking  her  skirts  up  behind 
with  the  smoke  streaming  away  back  like  she  was 
just  skimming  the  current ;  and  sometimes  a  tow- 
boat  pushing  so  much  coal  before  her  that  you  'd 
think  she  was  bringing  a  whole  coal  mine  down 
from  the  Ohio ;  sometimes  just  a  houseboat  floating 
down  because  it  don't  cost  nothing,  and  sometimes 


THE  PROFESSOR  IN  ACTION  257 

a  kind  of  a  canal-boat  full  of  crockery  from  the 
Muskingum,  and  sometimes  a  farmer  with  a  load 
of  farm  truck  in  a  big  box  of  new  lumber  sunk 
most  to  its  edges,  and  him  sitting  on  top  smoking 
his  pipe  and  taking  his  stuff  to  market  a  thousand 
miles  away;  and  sometimes  a  ferryboat  going  by 
horse-power  crossways,  and  sometimes — there  's  a 
lot  of  them,  but  I  guess  a  long  raft  is  the  boss  of 
the  whole  bunch  because  them  fellows  don't  care 
much.  Things  is  kind  of  monotonous  for  them, 
anyway.  And  sometimes  a  big  packet  wooding  up 
in  the  night  with  fifty  niggers  running  back  and 
forth  and  singing  together  and  the  mate  a-cussing 
and  the  passengers  out  on  the  guards  a-listening 
and  hardly  knowing  whether  the  singing  or  the 
cussing  is  the  best. 

I  seen  a  farmer's  boat  that  looked  like  he  had  a 
new  shed  in  his  back  yard  with  his  crops  in  it  and 
he  took  a  notion  to  cork  up  the  cracks  and  float  it 
down  the  river.  I  seen  a  fellow  that  had  a  roof  on 
his'n  and  a  hole  in  the  end  with  a  shelf  before  it, 
and  he  would  come  out  like  a  pigeon  and  sit  on  the 
shelf  with  his  feet  hanging  over  the  water;  and 
when  he  was  tired  smoking  he  would  go  inside.  He 
told  us  he  was  from  the  Cumberland.  When  them 
kind  gets  to  New  Orleans  they  sell  their  truck  and 
pull  out  the  nails.  Then  they  have  a  little  lumber 
yard  that  was  n't  spoiled  at  all  by  being  a  boat. 
Why,  they  ain't  boats  at  all,  they  ain't  even 
barges ;  they  're  all  freight— lumber  and  farm-stuff 
coming  down  together.  Then  he  takes  a  train  or  a 
packet  and  goes  back. 

17 


258  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

There  is  a  heap  more  goes  down  the  Mississippi 
than  ever  goes  up  it  again,  and  that  sets  you 
a-thinking.  On  some  rivers  you  think  a  good  deal 
about  the  scenery,  but  when  you  're  floating  down 
this  river  you  don't  think  of  nothing  but  the  Mis 
sissippi.  Some  ways  I  hain't  treated  this  river  quite 
fair.  But  I  guess  I  give  it  just  as  much  credit  as 
most  people  do  right  at  the  first.  I  '11  tell  you  how 
it  is.  You  see  there  is  the  Missouri  coming  in 
above  St.  Louis,  and  it  is  more  rivers  put  together 
than  you  would  take  time  to  count  up ;  and  it  joins 
the  Upper  Mississippi,  which  brings  along  a  lot  of 
pretty  fair  rivers;  and  they  take  in  the  Ohio, 
which  is  made  up  of  the  Monongahela  and  the 
Allegheny  and  takes  in  the  Muskingum  and 
the  Little  Kanawha  and  the  Great  Kanawha  and 
the  Big  Sandy  and  the  Sciota  and  the  Kentucky 
and  the  Wabash  and  the  Cumberland  and  the 
Tennessee  and  others;  and  there  comes  in  the 
Arkansas,  which  is  two  thousand  miles  long  it 
self  and  is  only  second  to  the  Missouri  and  takes  in 
more  streams  than  anybody  would  have  patience 
with;  and  there  comes  the  Red  River,  in  partners 
with  the  Wichita— there  ain't  no  use  to  tell  about 
the  St.  Francis  and  the  rest,  because  when  I  looked 
on  the  map  it  had  me  beat.  Besides  them  main 
ones  there  is  a  lot  of  second-class  rivers  that  go 
right  into  the  lower  Mississippi  for  themselves,  like 
the  Obion  and  the  Hatchee  and  the  Yazoo  and  the 
Big  Black— the  map  is  wormy  with  them. 

Well,  the  Mississippi  is  all  them  put  together.  It 
gets  deeper  and  swifter  and  widens  out  sometimes 


THE    PROFESSOR  IN   ACTION  259 

and  gets  narrower  sometimes ;  and  when  you  see  it 
you  just  give  it  a  look  and  think  it  is  a  pretty  fair 
wide  river.  It  does  it  so  easy  it  fools  you.  But 
when  you  have  lived  on  it  and  laid  around  on  it 
with  nothing  else  to  do,  and  when  you  have  seen 
how  it  can  swallow  up  a  river  and  not  notice  it,  and 
when  you  begin  to  see  how  many  solid  square  miles 
of  water  is  going  past  every  hour,  it  gets  worked 
into  your  head  and  soaked  right  down  into  you  that 
this  here  is  the  Mississippi.  If  the  Professor  owned 
it  he  would  call  it  the  Consolidated  Aggregation  of 
Rivers. 


CHAPTER  XX 

MARY   Me  KAY   ON   IDIOTS   AND   OTHERS 

ND  next  thing  we  done  we 
come  across  Mary  McKay 
coming  down  from  Ken 
tucky  on  her  flat— her  and 
the  idiot.  You  see  when 
we  was  working  along 
pretty  well  toward  Mem 
phis—and  I  wishing  every 
day  we  would  get  there— 
we  was  delayed  at  a  town 
because  we  had  to  get  a 
license  for  the  Consolidated  Aggregation.  It 
was  n  't  no  license  to  pilot ;  you  don 't  have  to  get  a 
license  for  a  show-boat,  anybody  can  work  the 
sweep.  Of  course  some  ways  you  are  a  danger,  but 
seeing  you  have  n't  got  any  power  on  board  you 
can't  make  no  fool  moves  and  do  something  unex 
pected,  and  that  is  a  good  thing  for  the  steamboat 
pilots.  They  can  watch  out  for  you.  But  some 
times  you  do  have  to  get  a  license  to  give  a  show. 
Well,  they  don't  examine  you  for  that  like  they  do 
a  pilot  to  find  out  if  you  know  how  to  run  a  show, 
and  if  you  know  a  joke  when  you  see  one,  and  if 
you  have  got  a  reliable  clown  that  you  can  depend 

260 


MARY  McKAY  ON  IDIOTS  AND  OTHERS  261 

on— it  ain't  like  that.  You  just  pay  down  your 
money  for  the  license  and  they  take  the  risk.  Well, 
that  town  ought  to  'a'  had  its  own  license  taken 
away ;  we  could  n  't  get  down  to  doing  business. 
We  did  n't  get  the  show  going  till  night  and  so  we 
laid  over  and  give  a  day  show  to  gather  up  the 
leavings.  That  brought  us  out  into  the  river  again 
early  in  the  afternoon  and  that  is  how  we  come  to 
be  going  along  forty  feet  or  so  away  from  one  of 
them  farmer  boats.  There  was  a  pretty  pert  little 
woman  sitting  up  on  it  looking  at  us  out  of  a  sun- 
bonnet.  She  was  n't  very  well  dressed  but  she  was 
neat  and  trim-built  and  she  had  a  sassy  way  with 
out  being  what  you  would  call  sassy.  There  was  a 
big,  slab-sided,  flat-footed  fellow  that  minded  the 
sweep  and  done  what  she  said  like  she  was  the  cap 
tain. 

Well,  we  was  going  along  together  as  even  as  if 
we  was  just  laying  next  to  each  other  and  we  got 
to  talking  back  and  forth  till  we  were  acquainted. 
Pretty  soon  we  all  took  a  shine  to  her  because  she 
was  pretty  sharp  in  her  answers ;  and  when  she 
found  we  was  a  show-boat  her  and  him  pushed  over 
closer  and  put  a  plank  out  and  came  aboard,  and 
visited  us.  She  wanted  to  know  whether  we  made 
lots  of  money  and  how  much  a  Fat  Lady  got  and 
how  much  for  a  Giant.  She  had  n't  never  been  on 
the  insides  of  a  show  before  but  you  would  n't  'a' 
knowed  it  because  it  did  n't  faze  her  none;  she 
seemed  to  know  it  was  just  a  way  to  get  money  out 
of  folks. 

The  Fat  Lady  liked  her  and  wondered  that  she 


262  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

was  n't  afraid  to  go  down  the  river  all  alone  with 
only  that  irresponsible  fellow.  But  she  said  Josh 
was  more  responsible  than  lots  of  men  that  had  all 
their  brains;  anyway,  he  would  follow  a  woman's 


"  Put  a  plank  out  and  came  aboard  " 


advice  when  it  was  given  to  him  and  that  was  how 
he  come  to  do  a  lot  of  more  sensible  things  than 
men  that  have  their  wits.  And  anyway  she  said 
she  would  n't  'a'  been  afraid  to  come  down  any 
river  alone  because  her  folks  was  keelboatmen  be 
fore  steamboats  ever  come.  They  was  Kentuckians 
in  the  days  when  you  really  had  to  hold  up  your 
end,  and  she  knew  how  to  get  along  with  men  folks. 
Some  ways  she  was  pretty  forward,  but  it  was  n't 
nothing,  because  it  come  natural  to  her;  she  wras  a 
lady  without  having  to  put  it  on.  You  could  see 


MARY  McKAY  ON  IDIOTS  AND  OTHERS  263 

she  was  used  to  men  folks  and  knew  how  to  take  all 
of  them.  She  told  the  Fat  Lady  a  woman  HAD  to 
be  sharper  than  a  man,  but  she  must  n't  always  let 
on  that  she  is.  The  Professor  soon  found  out  she 
was  pretty  sharp;  he  said  she  could  V  dead 
headed  her  way  into  a  show  without  half  trying. 
I  was  surprised  when  I  found  she  could  n  't  read  or 
write.  She  told  me  that  when  I  had  to  read  the 
sign  for  her.  There  is  some  people  so  smart  that 
you  would  n't  know  they  were  not  educated.  By 
the  time  she  was  through  visiting  she  had  found 
I  did  n 't  really  belong  to  the  show  but  was  a  steam- 
boater  ;  and  she  took  up  with  me.  I  went  over  and 
rode  with  her  awhile  and  I  found  out  all  about 
who  she  was.  And  here  is  who  she  was : 

Josh  was  her  son,  but  he  was  n't  hers  by  rights. 
Her  husband  was  married  before  and  that  's  how 
she  come  to  have  an  idiot.  She  come  from  away  up 
the  Kentucky  River  and  most  of  her  kin  had  lived 
there.  Her  husband's  kin  lived  around  there,  too, 
but  some  of  them  lived  up  in  the  Cumberlands.  Her 
husband  and  her  had  a  patch  of  land  with  some 
hogs  and  a  cow  and  the  idiot;  and  they  ail  paid 
pretty  well,  especially  the  idiot,  which  brought 
them  seventy  dollars  a  year  from  the  Government 
and  paid  best  of  all  in  real  money. 

In  Kentucky  you  get  paid  seventy  dollars  a  year 
for  having  a  idiot  and  so  much  for  having  blindies ; 
but  there  was  n't  no  blindness  in  her  husband's 
family;  they  only  had  an  idiot.  You  see  some 
States  put  up  big  buildings  to  take  care  of  them 
kind  and  they  can 't  get  no  help  without  they  go  and 


264  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

live  there.  But  where  she  come  from  they  don't  do 
that ;  instead  of  hiring  a  lot  of  people  to  take  care 
of  them,  and  hiring  politicians  to  run  them,  they 
give  the  money  to  their  folks  and  let  them  do  it 
theirselves.  That  way  they  get  took  care  of  at 
home  and  nobody  has  any  complaints  to  make  and 
everybody  is  satisfied.  It  is  sensibler  and  the 
State  knows  how  much  it  is  going  to  cost.  So  if 
you  have  an  idiot  you  can  get  the  job  of  taking  care 
of  him  if  you  want  it. 

Well,  her  husband's  kin  used  the  idiot  for  his 
board  and  keep,  and  his  pa  drew  the  money  himself ; 
they  did  n't  want  him  to  marry  again  but  he  went 
and  married  Mary  McKay  anyhow  and  took  Josh 
along.  And  with  their  patch  of  land  and  the  idiot's 
salary  they  got  along  pretty  fair.  He  was  a  lot  of 
help,  too,  and  done  more  work  than  her  husband; 
the  only  trouble  with  Josh  was  that  when  you  put 
him  at  anything  he  would  n't  know  when  to  stop. 
If  you  started  him  to  carrying  cordwood  onto  a  flat- 
boat  he  would  keep  carrying  it  till  he  sunk  the  boat 
or  was  all  tired  out;  he  would  keep  right  on  at  a 
thing  till  somebody  that  had  sense  would  tell  him 
not  to  do  it  no  more.  But  mostly  he  was  pretty 
good  at  that  kind  of  work ;  he  was  big  and  strong. 

Well,  after  a  while  her  husband  ups  and  dies. 
And  he  left  her  everything.  His  kin  wanted  the 
idiot  back  again  and  now  they  thought  they  ought 
to  have  him;  but  he  went  to  her  because  now  she 
was  his  mother.  Well,  they  could  n't  see  it  that 
way;  they  did  n't  have  a  blindy  nor  nothing  and 
he  was  really  their  kin  and  not  hers;  and  so  they 


MARY  McKAY  ON  IDIOTS  AND  OTHERS  265 

thought  they  ought  to  fall  into  the  idiot  by  rights. 
But  she  would  n  't  let  them  have  Josh ;  she  stuck  to 
her  own  rights  by  law.  She  thought  a  good  deal 
of  Josh  and  she  knew  they  would  work  him  to 
death  and  take  the  money.  He  was  a  good  willing 
fellow  and  she  was  n 't  going  to  see  him  done  wrong 
by ;  and  you  bet  she  had  a  mind  of  her  own.  Josh 
was  a  strong  man  but  he  had  n't  grown  up  in  his 
mind.  He  was  good-natured  and  pleased  with  any 
thing  and  thought  everybody  was  all  right ;  he  was 
foolish.  When  he  was  n't  working  he  would  just  as 
leave  play  marbles  with  a  little  boy;  he  was  awful 
good  with  children. 

Well,  they  pestered  her  and  made  it  so  miserable 
that  she  made  up  her  mind  to  go  away  with  him ; 
she  had  always  wanted  to  travel  and  see  the  world 
anyway.  Her  husband  had  been  building  a  flat  to 
take  truck  to  New  Orleans,  so  she  put  on  the  stuff 
and  decided  to  take  it  herself.  She  had  n't  never 
been  down  the  Mississippi  so  far  but  she  liked 
traveling  and  seeing  the  different  kinds  of  folks; 
she  reckoned  she  took  it  after  her  grandfather  that 
was  a  keelboat  man. 

You  see  her  grandfather  was  one  of  them  men 
that  was  on  freight  boats  in  place  of  engines  before 
steam  was  invented.  And  they  was  the  biggest  and 
powerfulest  and  fightingest  men  that  ever  was; 
they  had  to  be.  A  keelboat  was  pretty  big  and 
something  like  a  canal-boat  and  pointed  at  both 
ends.  There  was  from  seven  to  ten  men  on  each 
side  to  pole  it  up-stream— fifteen  or  twenty  men  all 
together.  There  was  a  row  of  boards  laid  along  the 


266  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

sides  of  the  boat  from  end  to  end  and  them  was 
called  the  walks.  The  men  would  go  to  the  end  of 
the  boat  that  was  up-stream  and  turn  their  backs 
to  it  and  set  their  poles  on  bottom  and  start  to 
walk.  Of  course  they  would  n't  go  anywheres 
themselves  because  the  poles  was  on  bottom— but 
the  boat  would  move  up  under  them  and  that  way 
they  walked  it  against  the  current.  Them  men 
would  push  a  load  of  freight  up  river  a  thousand 
or  fifteen  hundred  miles,  and  sometimes  two  thou 
sand  miles  from  New  Orleans  to  Pittsburgh.  And 
they  would  have  to  work  steady  from  four  to  five 
months  to  get  one  load  up.  But  there  was  hun 
dreds  and  hundreds  of  keelboats. 

Well,  I  '11  tell  you  how  them  men  was.  In  these 
days,  when  a  boat  lays  at  a  landing  and  the  fire 
keeps  on  making  steam  in  the  boilers  it  has  got  to 
blow  off  or  something  is  going  to  happen.  Same 
way  with  them  men  which  was  engines  in  them 
days.  From  doing  that  kind  of  work  and  growing 
strong  in  the  arms  with  great  big  muscles  on  their 
chests  they  had  a  feeling  that  nothing  could  get  the 
best  of  them ;  there  was  n't  a  chute  that  could  push 
them  back  nor  a  rapids  that  could  slew  them  around 
nor  a  current  they  could  n't  walk  the  boat  against 
nor  a  man  they  could  n  't  whip ;  they  could  feel  it 
right  inside  of  themselves.  When  a  lot  of  them  was 
in  camp  and  had  been  laying  still  too  long  and  got 
to  feeling  that  way,  you  could  get  up  a  fight  easy. 
All  anybody  had  to  do  was  to  jump  up  and  crack 
his  heels  together  and  he  would  mighty  soon  find 
somebody  that  would  like  to  accommodate  him. 


MARY  McKAY  ON  IDIOTS  AND  OTHERS  267 

Then  you  would  see  some  tall  fighting.  Sometimes  a 
whole  crew  would  tackle  another  crew,  equal  num 
bers  and  fair  and  square,  and  they  would  have  a 
fight  to  the  finish  just  for  the  fun  of  it;  and  you 
bet  they  fought  in  earnest.  But  they  always  fought 
equal  numbers;  they  would  n't  even  help  out  their 
own  side— they  was  fair  and  square.  On  the  boat 
they  was  engines  and  ashore  they  was  fighters. 
Hundreds  of  them  boats  used  to  be  at  Natchez- 
under-the-hill,  and  down  there  under  the  bluffs 
there  use  to  be  warm  times.  But  they  would  n't 
bother  other  folks  or  do  things  to  show  off  at  all. 
Fighting  was  just  their  safety-valves.  And  when 
they  did  n't  have  a  pole  at  their  shoulders  it  was 
mostly  the  butt  of  a  rifle.  They  did  n  't  know  about 
shot-guns;  they  would  only  need  to  hit  a  thing  in 
one  place  and  they  would  pick  out  the  place.  They 
was  big  and  strong.  Well,  they  had  to  be. 

Mary  McKay's  grandfather  was  one  of  them. 
She  said  the  women  folks  in  her  family  was  small 
and  active  like  her,  but  they  had  big  men.  And 
when  her  grandfather  got  his  money  at  Natchez, 
which  was  the  paying-off  place,  and  took  a  notion 
to  come  home,  he  would  walk  with  his  rifle  over  the 
Natchez  and  Nashville  trace  and  up  to  the  Ken 
tucky  River.  When  white  men  tramped  out  a  trail 
like  that  it  was  called  a  trace,  because  that  was  how 
they  traced  their  way  home. 

Her  family  remembered  back  to  the  earthquakes 
at  New  Madrid ;  people  felt  them  hundreds  of  miles 
away.  It  was  just  at  the  tail  end  of  1811  and  it 
kept  up  most  three  months  whenever  it  felt  like  it, 


268  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

so  that  it  lapped  over  onto  1812.    And  it  was  right 

at  the  same  time  that  the  first  steamboat  happened 


"  Over  the  Natchez  and  Nashville  trace  " 

on  the   Ohio  and   Mississippi.     They  built  it   at 
Pittsburgh.     Fulton  done  it  the  same  as  he  had 


MARY  McKAY  ON  IDIOTS  AND  OTHERS  269 

done  it  down  East,  and  it  was  a  wonder;  and 
Captain  Roosevelt  he  was  the  captain  of  it.  It 
was  mighty  funny  how  the  earth  started  to  blow 
up  her  boilers  just  when  the  first  steamboat  come 
up  there  to  get  coal.  They  built  another  and  an 
other  right  away  and  one  of  them  made  a  trip  in 
twenty-five  days  that  had  always  taken  five  or  six 
months.  And  they  kept  right  on  building  them. 
And  right  from  that  time  the  keelboat  men  began 
to  go  out  of  style  and  the  engines  were  taking  their 
jobs. 

But  the  people  was  n't  through  using  them  fel 
lows  yet ;  just  then  there  broke  out  a  war  and  fight 
ing  was  right  in  their  line.  It  was  a  war  with  them 
English  again.  Well,  we  did  pretty  fair  on  the 
ocean  but  we  did  n't  make  out  very  good  on  land. 
It  seemed  they  could  do  just  what  they  wanted  with 
us  for  a  long  time.  It  dragged  along  a  couple  of 
years  and  then  there  was  12,000  of  them  getting 
ready  to  take  New  Orleans.  Andy  Jackson  he  had 
about  only  6,000  men  to  make  them  keep  back.  The 
English  general  did  n't  think  they  would  amount 
to  much ;  he  did  n  't  know  about  them  riflemen  from 
Tennessee  and  Kentucky.  His  men  were  soldiers 
that  knew  about  battles ;  and  we  was  just  jayhawks 
and  greenhorns  that  had  been  picked  up  everywhere 
and  did  n't  know  nothing  about  war.  And  there 
was  n't  half  enough  of  us,  neither.  Well,  the  Eng 
lish  got  in  line  and  come  right  on.  Andy  Jackson 
he  turned  loose  his  cannons.  But  them  English 
don't  mind  that;  they  are  used  to  it.  They  come 
right  along.  And  when  they  got  a  little  closer  they 


270  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

all  started  to  drop  dead.  Them  long-rifle  fellows 
could  take  a  general  off  his  horse  a  lot  easier  than 
barking  a  squirrel  off  'n  a  tree;  and  they  kept  a- 
doing  it.  Every  time  a  rifle  went  off  there  was  a 
bullet  in  a  soldier.  After  they  found  what  they 
had  run  into  they  turned  around  and  run  the  other 
way;  it  was  a  different  kind  of  greenhorns  than 
they  was  used  to.  That  was  about  the  end  of  the 
war.  And  when  it  was  over  the  men  went  back 
home  again,  all  except  the  seven  that  was  killed. 
And  there  was  six  hurt  some,  too.  They  had  killed 
seven  hundred  soldiers  and  wounded  over  a  thou 
sand — about  seventeen  hundred  altogether.  That 
was  mighty  good  shooting.  Well,  they  was  build 
ing  steamboats  swift  then — and  that  was  about  all 
of  keelboat  men. 

Mary  McKay  had  a  pig  that  would  follow  her 
all  around.  But  she  had  to  sell  it.  She  had  a  cow 
that  come  fresh  that  spring,  too,  and  she  was  awful 
disappointed  because  it  was  the  wrong  kind  of  a 
calf ;  she  wanted  to  raise  it  up  to  be  a  cow.  But  the 
way  it  turned  out  she  rented  her  place  till  she 
would  want  to  come  back;  and  so  it  did  n't  make 
no  difference  after  all.  I  asked  her  what  she  was 
going  to  do  at  New  Orleans  and  she  said  she  was 
going  right  back  to  Kentucky  again ;  she  would  n  't 
leave  the  Kentucky  River.  She  said  that  on  that 
river  there  is  about  thirty  miles  where  the  bluffs 
are  straight  up  hundreds  of  feet  on  each  side  and 
so  near  together  you  can  throw  a  stone  across  the 
top ;  and  everybody  says  it  is  the  beautifullest  river 
in  the  world.  But  up  where  her  place  was  it  was 


MARY  McKAY  ON  IDIOTS  AND  OTHERS  271 

all  green  pastures  and  rolling  land  and  that  is  the 
beautifullest  country  in  the  world.  And  what 
would  anybody  ever  leave  that  for?  So  when  she 
sold  her  flat  and  looked  at  New  Orleans  she  was 
going  back  there  again ;  and  then  she  would  like  to 
see  them  try  to  get  Josh  away  or  impose  on  her.  I 
bet  they  would  come  out  of  the  little  end  of  the 
horn ;  she  was  able  to  take  care  of  herself. 

Late  that  afternoon  I  had  to  put  the  board  across 
and  get  back  on  our  boat  again  because  there 
was  Memphis.  There  was  the  post-office  on  the 
bluff,  and  there  was  the  ferry-boat  with  one  stack 
crooked  like  it  had  a  leaning  toward  Arkansaw ;  and 
there  was  the  railroad  tracks.  Well,  I  would 
rather  have  staid  on  her  flat  and  gone  to  New 
Orleans  with  her  if  it  was  n't  that  I  was  getting 
wages  for  being  part  of  the  show ;  I  liked  her.  She 
could  tell  you  more  interesting  things  than  a 
school-teacher,  only  she  could  n't  read  and  write. 
But  we  had  to  get  to  work  and  turn  in  to  Memphis. 
And  Mary  McKay  went  floating  on. 


CHAPTER  XXI 


BUSTING  INTO  TENNESSEE 

T  was  getting  dark  when  we 
shoved  in  at  Memphis  and 
found  a  place  for  ourselves 
at  a  wharf-boat  where  the 
railroad  tracks  ran  along 
the  levee.  There  was  a 
packet  laying  just  above  us 
with  the  lights  lit  in  her 
cabin  and  the  smoke  float 
ing  lazy  out  of  her  stacks 
and  there  was  an  engine 
pulling  aAvay  from  a  coal- 
shoot  where  it  had  just  been  filled  up.  Before  long 
a  man  come  and  stood  at  the  edge  of  the  boat  and 
began  to  show  his  authority,  wanting  to  know  what 
license  we  had  to  come  along  there  and  take  up  space 
inside  the  Tennessee  line  that  maybe  steamboats 
would  need.  Him  and  the  Professor  argued  back 
and  forth  and  the  man  did  n't  like  to  have  his 
authority  questioned  like  that.  When  the  talk  was 
getting  pretty  warm  there  come  along  an  Irishman 
dragging  a  shovel  behind  him.  He  stood  and  lis 
tened  awhile  and  then  he  chipped  in. 

"Don't  ye  be  talkin'  back  to  Jenkins,"  he  says. 

272 


BUSTING  INTO  TENNESSEE  273 

"If  ye  do  he  '11  be  makin'  ye  move  out  into  th' 
United  States  agin.  Th'  Gover'mint  is  sixty-five 
feet  out  from  shore  an'  ye  're  inside  av  his  beat 
on  th '  wather. ' ' 

Then  it  come  out  that  it  was  the  wharf -master 
that  the  Professor  had  been  sassing  back  to.  And 
now  he  wanted  to  know  if  we  had  whiskey  on 
board  and  if  we  had  a  license.  And  the  Professor 
said  no;  we  was  a  show.  And  then  the  Irishman 
chips  in  again. 

"Jenkins,"  he  says,  "let  's  th'  both  av  us  go  on 
an'  find  out.  I  doubt  th'  wan  or  th'  other  av  us 
wud  know  whishkey  if  we  wint  at  it  th'  right 
way. ' ' 

So  the  wharf -master  come  aboard  of  us  with  the 
Irishman  dragging  his  shovel  behind  him ;  and  they 
looked  over  all  the  freaks.  The  Irishman  stood  and 
looked  at  the  Fat  Lady  with  his  little  soft  hat  in 
his  hand.  And  then  he  turned  to  the  wharf -master. 

"Jenkins,"  he  says,  "I  see  no  harm  in  this. 
Ther  is  nobody  here  that  is  agin  th'  law." 

The  Professor  seen  how  things  was  going  and  he 
took  a  different  way  about. 

"Sit  down,  gents,"  he  says.  "We  're  just  a 
little  tired  rowing  this  scow  in;  and  if  it  does  n't 
make  any  difference  to  you,  we  won't  be  in  a 
hurry. ' ' 

"Sit  down,  Jenkins,  an'  have  a  shmoke;  ye 
might  as  well  take  yer  time  about  it,"  says  the 
Irishman,  pointing  Jenkins  to  a  place  beside  him. 

But  Jenkins  was  kicking  his  toe  against  the  boxes 
and  trunks  like  he  thought  they  was  suspicious,  and 

18 


274  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

he  did  n  't  make  any  answer  at  all.  You  see  he  had 
been  showing  his  authority  and  been  talked  back  to 
and  contradicted  in  a  way  that  he  was  n't  going  to 
turn  round  and  change  his  mind  all  of  a  sudden 
and  give  in  as  easy  as  that.  He  turned  on  his  heel 
and  went  away. 

"Where  has  that  fellow  gone  to  now?"  says  the 
Professor  to  the  Irishman. 

"He  has  gone  up  to  th'  other  wharf -boat.  Mab- 
by  he  has  gone  to  find  out  something. ' ' 

"Have  you  got  charge  of  the  boats,  too?"  says 
the  Professor. 

"Me!"  said  the  Irishman.  "I  have  charge  av 
th'  locomotives.  'T  is  me  that  pits  th'  sand  intil 
thim.  'T  is  that  way  they  hould  their  grip  on  th' 
rails  f 'r  to  shtart  an'  shtop.  'T  is  little  they  'd  be 
needin'  sand  on  a  boat,  wid  all  't  is  a  mighty  slip 
pery  river.  Have  ye  only  just  yerselves  ? ' ' 

"Just  ourselves  and  our  outfit.  We  're  going  to 
pitch  the  tent  somewhere  to-morrow." 

"Well,  if  that  is  all,  mabby  Jenkins  wud  let  ye 
stay  here  jist  f 'r  th'  night  if  ye  'd  go  at  him  right. 
What  have  ye  in  th '  boxes  ?  Have  ye  anny  stuffed 
mummies  or  th '  likes  ? ' ' 

"We  have  only  living  curiosities,"  said  the  Pro 
fessor.  And  he  gave  the  Irishman  a  handbill.  The 
Irishman  struck  a  match  and  lit  a  short  pipe.  And 
then  he  used  the  rest  of  the  match  to  read  the 
handbill,  till  it  went  out. 

"Have  ye  no  shtrong  man  in  yer  show?" 

"No,  we  have  n't  any  strong  man." 

"Well,  now,  't  is  too  bad  a  show  wud  not  have 


BUSTING  INTO  TENNESSEE 


275 


that.  'T  is  that  plazes  th'  byes.  I  doubt  if  ye 
had  come  across  th'  likes  av  Bill  in  th'  days  whin 
he  was  thravelin'  around  he  'd  'a'  been  th'  bye 
f ' r  ye.  Wud  he  lift  th'  anvils  an'  toss  around  th' 
heavy  weights  in  a  show  th'  way  he  does  whin  he  's 
workin'  he  could  make  their  eyes  stick  out  for 
thim." 

"Where  is  this  fellow?    Is  he  at  liberty?" 
"Yis.    He  is  at  liberty  now.    He  is  at  liberty  to 


"  '  Have  ye  no  shtrong  man  in  yer  show  ? ' 


276  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

stay  at  home— which  he  was  n't  whin  he  was  thrav- 
elin '  around. ' ' 

"Who  was  he  traveling  with?    Who  is  he?" 

"Well,  now,"  said  the  Irishman,  tamping  down 
the  tobacco  in  his  pipe,  "th'  answer  to  that  ques 
tion  wud  be  a  long  shtory.  And  then  I  cud  only 
shkim  th'  cream  off  av  it.  There  was  a  blacksmith 
doin'  some  work  on  a  ship  in  New  Orleans.  He 
was  th '  handy  bye  wid  th '  tools ;  he  cud  make  anny- 
thing  out  av  annything.  There  was  a  bos'n  on  th' 
boat  nixt  dure  that  med  frinds  wid  him  be  way 
av  takin'  a  drink  now  and  again.  Th'  bos'n  was  a 
good  felly  excipt  whin  th'  whiskey  was  workin'  in 
him;  an'  wan  rainy  day  whin  he  was  feelin'  that 
way  he  come  over  an'  took  a  swipe  at  th'  black 
smith.  An'  Bill,  that  was  th'  handy  bye,  started 
in  f  r  to  make  a  corpse  av  him  wid  a  cotton  hook. 
Whin  th '  bos  'n  seen  what  he  had  tackled  he  turned 
an'  run  f'r  to  save  his  life  in  the  gallows  av  th' 
ship.  An'  Bill  afther  him  wid  th'  cotton  hook 
makin'  jabs  f'r  his  coat-tails.  An'  just  as  the 
blacksmith  was  comin'  to  th'  gallows— as  luck  wud 
have  it—" 

Just  as  the  Irishman  got  to  that  part  of  the 
story,  and  I  was  listening  and  Stubbs  was  listening 
and  everybody  was  listening,  there  come  the  scream 
of  a  locomotive  up  the  tracks  and  a  headlight 
flashed  in  sight.  At  that  the  Irishman  jumped  up 
and  grabbed  his  shovel. 

"Good-bye  to  all  av  ye— 't  is  Number  Sivin  and 
I  have  me  work  to  do."  And  he  went  hurrying 
away  with  the  shovel  on  his  shoulder.  I  was  awful 


BUSTING  INTO  TENNESSEE  277 

sorry  the  locomotive  come  then;  I  would  'a'  liked 
to  hear  what  it  was  that  happened. 

Right  after  he  was  gone  the  wharf -master  come 
again.  "Go  on  now;  git  out  of  here.  Did  n't  I 
tell  you  once  to  move  on?"  he  says.  And  he 
would  n't  let  the  Professor  argue  back  to  him  at 
all;  I  guess  he  did  n't  like  his  way  at  the  begin 
ning. 

So  we  had  to  let  loose  and  push  out  onto  the 
dark  water  again. 

Then  the  current  took  right  hold  of  us  and  carried 
us  away  into  the  night.  Away  over  to  the  right 
was  the  Arkansaw  woods,  looking  dismaler  than 
anything,  with  only  the  light  of  a  cabin  peeking  out 
of  the  darkness  here  and  there ;  and  on  the  left  was 
the  lights  of  the  city  sprinkled  all  along  but  not 
lighting  things  up  much;  they  was  mostly  hid  by 
the  high  bank.  The  river  was  spread  out  awful 
wide  between,  and  off  ahead  you  could  hardly  tell 
where  it  left  off ;  it  just  emptied  into  the  night.  The 
Fat  Lady  was  sitting  disgusted  in  her  chair  and 
telling  her  friend  the  Giant  how  she  never  expected 
to  be  ever  traveling  with  such  a  disgraceful  outcast 
show  as  this ;  the  Professor  he  walked  up  and  down 
and  cussed  and  the  stars  was  all  twinkling  in  the 
sky.  But  there  was  only  a  thin  edge  of  moon  and 
the  stars  did  n  't  do  much  good.  We  had  floated  in 
the  night  before  but  now  it  did  n't  seem  the  same. 
This  was  like  us  and  our  home  had  been  kicked  out 
of  the  world.  We  was  just  drifting  along  on  the 
United  States  water  which  did  01  't  belong  to  nobody. 
The  Professor 's  wife  was  scolding  him  and  pointing 


278  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

out  his  mistakes  and  telling  him  he  did  n't  have  no 
tact  or  judgment  to  talk  like  he  did  in  the  first 
place,  and  he  told  her  to  "Aw,  shut  up  I"  and  then 
the  Fat  Lady  acted  dignified  at  the  goings-on  and 
made  noise  with  her  tongue  like  clucking  a  chicken, 
which  the  Professor's  wife  heard  it  and  asked  her 
would  she  kindly  concern  herself  with  her  own 
affairs.  The  three  men  of  the  troupe  were  standing 
at  the  back  of  the  scow  and  pretending  to  be  inter 
ested  in  the  sweep ;  they  did  n  't  want  to  get  mixed 
up  in  it.  The  only  one  that  did  n't  care  was  Rags. 

Pretty  soon  a  big  side-wheeler  hove  in  sight  and 
come  walking  right  up  river  with  a  l>eam  of  light 
ahead  and  an  open  furnace  glaring  to  one  side  of 
her  bows.  She  let  out  a  deep  hoarse  whistle  like 
she  was  growling  at  us  because  we  had  been  in  her 
place ;  and  then  Stubbs  waved  the  lantern  to  make 
sure  that  the  pilot  would  see  us.  I  guess  he  did 
because  she  passed  by  all  right;  but  it  looked  like 
she  did  n't  notice  us  at  first.  In  a  little  while  we 
started  to  wallow  in  her  wash  and  that  made  them 
two  shut  up  a  while. 

Stubbs  had  been  watching  the  shore  close  and 
now  he  told  the  Professor  that  we  was  passing  a 
part  of  the  town  called  Fort  Pickering  and  that  it 
was  the  best  place  of  all  to  give  a  show. 

' '  Is  there  a  place  we  could  get  to  pitch  the  tent  ? ' ' 

"Best  place  in  town,"  says  Stubbs.  "There  is  a 
vacant  piece  of  ground  where  the  fort  used  to  be, 
and  it  's  built  up  and  settled  all  around.  Beestly 
Brothers'  show  done  good  there ;  it  's  a  fine  suburbs. 
It  's  all  vacant  except  the  powder-hole  in  the 


BUSTING  INTO  TENNESSEE  279 

middle ;  that  's  all  that  'a  left  of  the  fort.  We  'd 
find  that  handy,  too.  It  's  like  a  dug-out  on  flat 
ground  with  the  earth  heaped  up  in  a  mound  over 
it ;  and  you  go  down  into  it  through  a  door  like  a 
cellar.  If  Madame  Albion  and  Gulliver  don't  care 
to  be  left  here  on  the  boat  while  we  're  hauling  the 
stuff  and  looping-up,  they  can  go  right  along  on 
the  first  load  and  stay  in  the  powder-hole  till  we  'vc 
put  up  the  round-top." 

At  that  the  Fat  Lady  put  her  nose  up  in  the  air 
and  said  she  was  n't  going  to  do  no  underground 
snooping  for  this  here  show.  She  said  she  had  done  a 
lots  for  shows  that  did  n  't  have  no  accommodations ; 
but  when  it  come  to  being  buried  underground  so 
people  could  n't  see  her  it  was  the  limit,  and  enough 
is  about  enough.  Stubbs  he  apologized  and  said  it 
was  only  a  sejestion  of  his  and  no  offense  intended. 
So  she  gave  her  cheeks  another  touch  with  her 
powder  cloth  and  put  on  her  dignity  for  keeps. 

The  Professor  said  that  if  Stubbs  knew  the  coast 
along  these  parts  he  would  leave  it  all  to  him.  Then 
we  all  got  busy  rowing  in.  Pretty  soon  it  was  easy 
water  where  it  did  n't  take  us  along  so  fast,  and 
with  us  rowing  the  old  ark  sideways  we  kept  slant 
ing  in  fast  enough  to  strike  it  all  right,  so  Stubbs 
said.  And  the  next  thing  that  scow  done  was  to 
come  to  a  standstill  right  out  in  the  water.  And 
she  would  n 't  budge ;  she  had  poked  her  nose  in  a 
mud-bank  which  you  could  n't  see.  Shore  was  so 
far  away  yet  that  we  could  n't  'a'  got  to  it  without 
a  row-boat.  We  pushed  and  rowed  and  sweat— it 
was  a  hot  night— but  she  was  stuck.  Then  the  Pro- 


280  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

fessor  was  mad,  sure  enough.  He  stood  on  the  edge 
of  the  scow  and  looked  over  the  shore  and  run  down 
the  whole  State  of  Tennessee,  and  he  said  by  the 
great  jumpin'  Geehossafat  he  was  a-going  to  break 
into  that  State  somewheres  before  he  got  done. 

Stubbs  took  soundings  with  the  pole  all  around 
and  he  said  it  was  only  the  front  end  that  was  n't 
floating  and  he  judged  it  was  a  kind  of  a  bluff  mud- 
bank  which  we  could  maybe  get  her  off.  Him  and 
the  Giant  each  took  a  pole;  and  while  we  shifted 
some  of  the  load  to  the  back  they  kept  pushing  so 
that  the  current  could  n  't  push  us  farther  on  when 
the  front  end  raised.  It  was  slow  water  there,  which 
was  a  good  thing.  Then  me  and  the  Professor  and 
his  wife  and  the  Tattooed  Man  stood  on  the  end 
that  was  n 't  on  bottom  and  teetered  up  and  down  to 
bring  her  loose.  But  she  would  n't  come.  We  was 
stuck  on  that  mud-bank. 

The  Fat  Lady  just  sat  in  her  chair  and  did  n't 
do  nothing.  Then  we  all  seen  that  it  was  her 
weight  sitting  where  she  was  that  was  helping  to 
hold  the  scow  on  bottom. 

"Madam,"  says  the  Professor  mighty  stern, 
'why  do  you  not  come  back  here  where  she  is  float 
ing  and  do  your  part.  Do  you  expect  them  men  to 
push  your  weight  off  ? " 

The  Fat  Lady  looked  pretty  huffy  and  I  thought 
she  was  n't  going  to  help  us  at  first;  but  she  come 
back  and  stood  in  line  and  when  we  jiggled  up  and 
down  she  done  it  with  us.  And  you  bet  when  she 
jiggled  something  had  to  come;  we  made  waves 
that  would  'a'  rocked  a  skiff.  On  a  boat  when  you 


BUSTING  INTO  TENNESSEE  281 

take  five  hundred  pounds  off  of  one  end  and  put  it 
on  the  other  it  makes  a  thousand  pounds  differ 
ence,  which  is  half  a  ton,  and  you  bet  that  counts, 
specially  when  she  jumped  up  and  down.  Stubbs 
got  one  corner  backed  off  and  then  the  current  come 
against  us  sideways  and  swung  us  free  and  we 


!<  When  she  jiggled  some  thing  had  to  come" 


282  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

went  drifting  on  again  t'-other-end-to.  Then  the 
Fat  Lady  took  her  place  in  her  chair  again  and  got 
out  her  fan  and  heaved  a  big  sigh.  I  was  awful 
glad  to  see  the  Fat  Lady  away  from  that  edge;  1 
was  afraid  she  might  lose  her  balance  and  go  over 
board.  If  she  had  fell  in  we  could  n't  'a'  never 
pulled  her  on  again.  I  bet  her  wash  would  'a'  sunk 
the  scow.  But  she  was  handier  on  her  feet  than  you 
would  'a'  thought.  Next  time  we  tried  to  make 
shore  we  got  right  up  to  it  without  grounding. 
Then  Stubbs  jumped  to  land  and  drove  some  of  the 
tent-stakes  and  made  her  fast;  and  we  was  tied 
alongside  of  Tennessee  at  last. 


CHAPTER  XXII 


HOW  THE  PROFESSOR  HELD  THE  FORT 

EXT  morning  we  had  to 
get  a  wagon  to  haul  the 
show  up  to  the  grounds. 
The  Professor  had  the 
Fat  Lady  go  up  on  the 
first  load  because  that 
was  the  canvas  which  sha 
could  sit  on  and  draw  it 
up  around  her.  Well, 
when  we  come  to  get  up 
to  the  grounds  we  found 
that  the  Fat  Lady  could 

n't  go  into  the  Fort  Pickering  powder-hole  because 
it  was  rain  water  inside ;  there  was  just  the  cellar  door 
in  the  humped-up  dirt  and  they  was  starting  to  make 
town  lots  of  the  place.  The  Fat  Lady  did  n't  have 
no  place  to  hide  herself,  so  she  had  to  go  back  with 
the  wagon  to  wait  on  the  boat.  She  sat  in  the 
middle  of  it  with  some  canvas  around  her  and  her 
head  sticking  out  and  finding  fault  with  things  all 
the  way ;  she  was  getting  awful  disgusted. 

After  the  men  had  got  the  center-pole  up  and 
tightened  the  main  guy  I  had  to  help  to  do  the 
looping-up  because  I  was  good  at  that  and  it  is  lots 

283 


284  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

of  work.     You  see  the  top  of  a  big  tent  is  all  cut 
like  pieces  of  pie  and  at  every  town  you  've  got  to 
fasten  it  all  together  like  sewing  or  lacing,  but  it 
ain't  either  of  them;  it  is  just  looping-up.    It  ain't 
like  sewing  because  you  don't  have  to  rip  it  apart, 
and  it  ain't  like  lacing  because  you  don't  have  to 
unlace  it.     There  is  just  little  loops  of  rope  all 
along  the  edges  of  each  piece  of  canvas;  and  all 
you  have  to  do  is  to  start  at  the  beginning  and  take 
a  loop  on  the  edge  of  one  piece  of  canvas  and  put  it 
through  the  loop  on  the  other  piece  and  put  the 
next  loop  through  that  and  the  next  loop  through 
that  and  keep  on  till  you  have  got  to  the  end.    Then 
you  fasten  the  last  loop  tight  so  that  it  can't  ever 
start  to  come  apart.    You  keep  unrolling  your  can 
vas,  like  pieces  of  pie  all  around  the  center-pole,  till 
it  is  all  put  together  on  the  ground  and  fastened  at 
the  middle  to  the  big  ring  that  slides  up  and  down 
the  pole.     Then  you  can  h'ist  it  up.     After  the 
show  you  just  unfasten  the  end  loops  and  give  it  a 
shake  and  it  all  falls  apart  and  you  roll  it  in  a 
bundle  and  throw  it  onto  the  wagon  and  start  to 
the  next  town  right  away.    It  is  just  circus  sewing, 
which  is  temporary  and  a  fraud.    But  it  would  be 
nice  if  they  would  sew  a  fellow's  clothes  that  way, 
specially  all  summer.     All  you  would  have  to  do 
would  be  to  pull  a  loop  and  dive  right  in.     I  bet 
there  would  be  lots  of  improvements  if  everybody 
knew  everybody  else's  trade. 

That  part  of  town  was  just  like  Stubbs  said  it 
was;  it  was  a  nice  suburbs  on  good  high  land  a 
little  back  from  the  river-banks,  which  was  called 


HOW  THE  PROFESSOR  HELD  THE  FORT  285 

the  Chickasaw  bluffs.  There  was  nice  cottages  all 
along  shady  streets  and  they  called  it  all  Fort 
Pickering.  But  the  real  place,  which  most  people 
did  n  't  seem  to  know  was  Fort  Pickering  at  all,  was 
just  a  big  vacant  lot.  All  that  was  left  of  the  fort 
was  three  timbers  that  held  open  the  mouth  of  the 
powder-hole;  the  Professor  took  some  old  logs  to 
build  up  his  ticket  stand  and  lecturing  platform. 
The  grass  had  n't  sprung  up  where  they  had 
scraped  the  ground  and  we  pitched  our  tent  on  the 
dirt ;  it  made  it  seem  circusy.  There  was  houses  all 
around,  some  old  and  some  new.  There  was  one 
big  frame  house  too  old  to  be  painted;  but  you 
would  n't  want  it  painted  because  it  was  all  dark 
and  had  flowery  vines  running  up  it.  There  was  a 
man  leaning  on  the  picket  fence  smoking  a  pipe 
comfortable  and  watching  the  tent  go  up.  On  the 
corner  of  our  vacant  place  was  two  new  houses 
which  it  was  n't  time  to  paint  yet;  they  was  just 
starting  to  build  on  the  town  lots. 

Farther  back  from  the  river  I  come  across  a  place 
that  was  all  nigger  shanties  set  around  any  ways  at 
all— just  one-room  shacks  with  stovepipes  or  any 
thing  for  chimneys.  There  was  some  nigger  mam 
mies  talking  to  each  other  and  little  pickaninnies 
running  around.  Well,  I  thinks  to  myself,  "This 
ain't  no  good  place  for  advertising  and  I  will  have 
to  find  a  better  one."  I  got  to  talking  to  a  fine, 
big,  well-dressed  lady  that  had  come  to  see  a  nigger 
mammy.  She  was  complaining  to  the  nigger 
mammy  because  she  could  n 't  get  anybody  to  come 
and  live  in  her  house,  and  work  for  her;  they  all 


286  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

wanted  to  come  home  to  this  place  nights.  The 
nigger  mammy,  which  was  a  little  yellow  nigger 
mammy,  said  she  would  n't  work  except  she  could 
just  carry  the  key  to  the  kitchen  and  come  and  un 
lock  the  house  in  the  morning  and  go  to  work.  She 
said  she  could  n  't  bear  to  be  away  from  home.  And 
the  white  lady,  which  was  a  Kentucky  lady,  said 
she  could  n't  understand  the  notions  they  all  had. 
She  did  n't  seem  to  be  able  to  get  anybody  she 
could  depend  on.  She  was  a  nice  lady  and  she 
talked  kind  to  me  and  told  me  how  to  find  my  way. 
And  I  gave  her  a  bill  for  it. 

I  rambled  around  and  got  onto  a  road  which 
did  n't  seem  to  be  going  nowheres  and  a  fellow  told 
me  it  went  away  out  to  a  burying  grounds  where 
there  was  fourteen  thousand  northern  people 
buried.  Well,  there  was  n 't  no  use  taking  bills  that 
direction,  so  I  went  somewheres  else.  After  a  while 
I  come  to  a  road  that  went  away  off  to  some  ether 
State ;  a  boy  told  me  that  some  people  took  that 
road  the  time  they  was  trying  to  get  away  from 
yellow  fever.  Just  as  I  was  turning  back  I  seen  a 
man  come  tearing  down  the  road  on  horseback  like 
he  was  running  a  race  to  town.  It  was  a  fine  black 
horse  which  looked  like  he  could  race  and  the  man 
was  riding  him  bareback  and  waving  his  hat ;  they 
was  just  going  it.  When  the  man  come  to  me  he 
pulled  the  horse  up  all  of  a  sudden. 

"I  come  within  one  of  it,"  he  says,  and  he 
waved  a  ticket  in  his  hand.  "Just  one  from  the 
capital  prize,"  and  he  looked  at  me  like  he  knew 
I  must  be  awful  surprised  and  interested.  And 


HOW  THE  PROFESSOR  HELD  THE  FORT  287 

just  to  prove  it  he  told  all  the  thousands  and  hun 
dreds  that  was  the  capital  prize.  And  his  was  just 
one  more.  I  told  him  that  was  pretty  good  and  I 
bet  it  was  closer  guessing  than  most  people  done 
and  I  handed  him  up  a  bill.  Then  he  turned  loose 
his  horse,  which  had  been  dancing  before  me  all 
the  time,  and  they  went  off  with  my  bill  like  it  was 
an  important  message  to  town.  Well,  I  thinks  to 
myself,  "Everybody  will  be  surprised  and  inter 
ested  and  count  up  how  much  it  would  'a'  been  if 
he  had  got  the  big  prize ;  and  to-morrow  he  will  wish 
he  never  come  within  one  of  anything."  Pretty 
near  getting  a  thing  ain  't  no  good  at  all ;  I  already 
found  that  out. 

On  the  way  back  to  town  I  seen  a  sister  of  char 
ity  stopping  in  the  gate  of  her  big  brick  building — 
she  had  a  quarter  which  the  man  had  stopped  and 
give  to  her  because  he  pretty  near  won— and  she 
was  talking  to  a  man  that  wanted  something  to  do 
for  something  to  eat.  She  said  he  could  chop  a 
little  kindling  in  the  basement  and  she  would  give 
him  a  nice  dinner.  I  gave  her  a  bill  and  I  give  him 
a  bill.  And  then  I  kept  on  towards  the  river 
again. 

When  I  was  through  town  I  had  only  a  small 
bunch  left,  so  I  turned  down  river  toward  the 
show.  Just  as  I  come  to  a  blacksmith  shop  I  only 
had  two  left,  so  I  stopped  and  looked  in  awhile. 
I  like  to  look  into  a  blacksmith  shop  when  the  anvils 
are  ringing  like  bells  and  everybody  is  working 
away. 

I  stood  in  the  door  and  let  the  sun  shine  warm 


288  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

on  my  back  and  looked  at  the  fires  blazing  up  in 
the  shade  and  the  iron  coming  out  soft  and  all 
ready  to  bend  and  spread  like  it  was  iron  dough; 
and  they  would  work  it  with  hammers  into  the 
shape  it  was  always  going  to  be.  And  when  it  was 
done  they  soused  it  into  a  tub  and  it  was  regular 
iron  that  would  n't  bend  for  nobody;  it  is  a  good 
thing  that  iron  is  that  way.  And  pretty  soon  the 
blacksmith  put  on  his  coat  and  says,  "Come  on; 
the  girls  will  be  waiting  dinner  for  us. ' ' 

Well,  I  did  n't  have  any  idea  it  was  that  late; 
here  I  had  been  standing  and  forgetting  all  about 
the  show.  I  gave  the  blacksmith  a  bill  and  I  gave 
the  lame  fellow  a  bill ;  then  I  took  to  my  heels  and 
made  tracks  back  to  the  Consolidated  Aggregation. 

When  I  got  back  there  was  people  all  around  the 
tent,  white  folks  and  black  folks  and  pickaninnies 
with  bow  legs  and  bumpy  heads;  and  a  crowd  of 
them  had  their  eyes  all  on  the  big  painting.  An 
old  mammy  was  selling  molasses  pop-corn  and 
somebody  had  started  up  pink  lemonade ;  it  was  a 
bright  sunny  day  with  a  little  breeze  a-blowing  and 
moving  the  picture  of  the  snake  charmer.  When  a 
breeze  made  it  go  wavy  like  that  it  looked  like  the 
snake  was  alive  and  crawling  up  the  lady;  it  was 
the  realest  picture  I  have  ever  seen.  Everybody 
liked  it. 

When  I  went  inside  our  people  was  all  standing 
round  and  waiting  till  it  would  be  time  to  start  up. 
There  was  a  boy  with  his  eye  to  a  crack  in  the  tent 
a-wishing  he  could  come  in,  and  the  Fat  Lady  had 
her  nose  to  a  slit  taking  a  peek  at  the  outside  and 


The  Circus 


289 


290  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

wishing  she  could  go  out.  She  was  complaining 
that  she  could  never  go  and  enjoy  the  fine  weather. 
She  had  traveled  all  over  the  known  world  and 
been  seen  by  everybody,  but  she  had  n  't  never  seen 
nothing  of  them  places  on  accounts  of  having  to 
live  so  private.  Stubbs  he  had  himself  all  whited 
up  with  a  big  smile  marked  out  on  his  face  and  him 
looking  solemn.  As  soon  as  the  Circassian  Princess 
had  her  hair  on  right  she  took  hold  of  the  drum 
stick  and  we  started  up  the  music.  Then  Stubbs 
stretched  himself  and  done  a  couple  of  movements 
to  get  himself  limbered  up  and  went  flipflapping 
out  of  the  door.  He  give  an  extra  big  show  outside 
and  done  everything  he  could  to  make  it  seem  cir- 
cusy.  Then  the  Professor  pranced  out  and  slammed 
the  money-box  on  the  board  and  started  in. 

He  had  n't  hardly  got  started  when  it  began  to 
sprinkle.  Some  of  them  which  had  seen  the  free 
show  started  to  leak  away  from  the  edges  of  the 
crowd  and  when  the  Professor  seen  that  he  tore 
loose  with  more  wonderful  talk  than  I  ever  heard 
before.  There  come  a  low  growl  of  thunder  off  in 
the  distance,  and  right  there  the  Professor  roared 
louder  and  worked  in  bigger  words.  I  could  see  he 
was  going  to  have  a  hard  time  to  run  opposition  to 
the  thunderstorm ;  but  every  time  it  thundered 
nearer  and  sprinkled  a  little  he  went  it  one  better. 
And  when  it  rumbled  again  he  come  right  down  to 
it  and  told  them  all  about  our  troupe  of  grand  free 
concert  and  premier  jubilee  minstrel  singers— all 
free  of  charge  and  without  additional  cost  price  or 
remuneration.  It  was  all  a  question  of  his  holding 


HOW  THE  PROFESSOR  HELD  THE  FORT  291 

them  till  the  rain  come  and  getting  them  in  when 
it  did.  Just  when  the  right  time  come  he  ended 
with  a  grand  sweat  and  slammed  down  a  peck  of 
money  for  change  and  told  them  not  to  crowd  and 
jam  but  just  to  follow  the  ropes  and  have  their 
change  ready  and  keep  a-moving.  And  nobody 
moved.  Then  there  come  a  dash  of  rain.  All  them 
that  was  thinking  about  it  made  up  their  minds  at 
the  same  time  and  moved  forward  to  get  under 
shelter,  and  I  guess  that  must  have  influenced  a  lot 
of  others ;  anyway  he  got  a  bigger  crowd  than  if  it 
was  fine  weather.  I  give  the  organ  to  the  nigger 
fellow  that  Stubbs  had  brought  in  and  got  onto  my 
platform.  But  I  could  n't  see  how  the  Professor 
was  going  to  give  a  minstrel  show.  We  did  n't 
have  none. 

The  Professor  gave  his  long  lectures  about  the 
different  curiosities,  one  after  another,  and  he 
made  them  longer  than  usual;  I  could  see  he  was 
taking  up  the  time.  It  was  raining  pretty  fair 
now.  It  leaked  through  the  tent  some  but  not 
enough  to  matter.  But  it  come  in  steady  through 
the  hole  at  the  top  where  the  pole  went  through.  It 
kept  running  down  the  pole  till  it  was  standing  in 
a  little  mud-puddle  of  its  own.  When  the  Profes 
sor  had  lectured  about  how  wonderful  I  was  and 
was  getting  started  on  the  Fat  Lady  he  turned  and 
whispered  to  me.  He  said  for  me  to  go  and  ask 
Stubbs  whether  he  was  most  ready  for  the  Min 
strels.  When  I  got  back  to  the  little  dressing  place 
Stubbs  was  all  changed.  He  had  on  an  old  suit 
turned  inside  out  with  the  colored  lining  showing 


292  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

and  his  face  was  blacked  up  with  the  cork  I  had 
seen  him  burning  in  Cairo.  He  told  me  to  tell  the 
Professor  he  was  ready  but  he  'd  be  blamed  if  he 
cculd  be  a  whole  minstrel  show.  And  he  said  to  tell 
the  Professor  that  the  best  he  could  do  would  be  a 
song  that  ought  to  fetch  them  in  Tennessee— it  was 


"  He  'd  be  blamed  if  he  could  be 
a  whole  minstrel  show" 


horsey— but  that  was  all  he  would  be  responsible  for, 
and  the  Professor  could  get  out  of  this  minstrel 
business  himself. 

That  did  n't  faze  the  Professor  none.  He  just 
announced  the  Minstrels  and  made  everybody  step 
to  one  side  while  he  dragged  out  a  platform  for 
dancing  on.  Then  Stubbs  come  walking  out  nigger- 
fashion  and  acting  loose-jointed,  like  an  old-time 


HOW  THE  PROFESSOR  HELD  THE  FORT  293 

darkey;  you  would  n't  'a'  knowed  it  was  him.  He 
done  a  lot  of  jigging  and  breakdown  dancing;  then 
he  opened  his  mouth,  which  he  had  made  it  look 
bigger  at  the  corners,  and  started  to  sing. 

"De  Camptown  ladies  sing  dis  song,  Doo  dah !  doo  dah ! 
De  Camptown  racetrack  five  miles  long,  Oh,  doo  dah 

day! 
I  come  down  heah  wid  my  hat  caved  in,  Doo  dah!  doo 

dah! 
I  go  back  home  wid  a  pocket  full  of  tin,  Oh,  doo  dah 

day! 

Gwine  to  run  all  night;  gwine  to  run  all  day, 

I  '11  bet  my  money  on  de  bobtail  nag, 

Somebody  bet  on  de  bay." 

(Some  handclapping.  And  the  rain  was  coming 
down  harder  and  leaking  through.) 

"De  long-tail  filly  and  de  big  black  hoss,  Doo  dah!  doo 

dah! 
Dey  fly  de  track  and  dey  both  cut  across,  Oh,  doo  dah 

day! 
De  blind  hoss  sticken  in  a  big  mud  hole,  Doo  dah !  doo 

dah! 
Can't  touch  bottom  wid  a  ten-foot  pole,  Oh,  doo  dah 

day!" 

(Lots  of  more  handclapping.  When  Stubbs  was 
singing  that  last  part  he  pointed  to  the  pole  stand 
ing  in  the  mud-puddle  and  everybody  seen  the  joke 
and  laughed.  The  wind  was  blowing  considerable 
outside.) 


294  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

"OF  nmley  cow  come  on  de  track,  Doo  dah !  doo  dah ! 
De  bobtail  fling  her  ober  his  back,  Oh,  doo  dah  day! 
Den  fly  along  like  a  railroad  car,  Doo  dah !  doo  dah ! 
Rimnin'  a  race  wid  a  shootin'  star,  Oh,  doo  dah  day!" 

(The  wind  was  getting  kind  of  worse.  It  come  in 
under  the  edge  of  the  top  and  bulged  it  up  some.) 

"See  dem  flyin'  on  a  ten-mile  heat,  Doo  dah!  doo  dah! 
Round  de  race  track,  den  repeat,  Oh,  doo  dah  day! 
I  win  my  money  on  de  bobtail  nag,  Doo  dah !  doo  dah ! 
I  keep  my  money  in  an  ol'  tow  bag,  Oh,  doo  dah  day! 

Gwine  to  run  all  night;  gwine  to  run  all  day; 

I  '11  bet  my  money  on  de  bobtail  nag, 

Somebody  bet  on  de  bay." 

The  wind  was  coming  harder  under  the  edge  of 
the  top  and  bulging  it  up  pretty  stiff  and  just  then 
the  center-pole  lifted  about  six  inches  out  of  its 
mud-puddle  and  come  down  into  it  again  like  a 
pile-driver  into  a  duck-pond  and  threw  mud  in  all 
directions;  it  went  all  over  folks.  Next  jump  it 
went  up  about  a  foot  and  come  down  and  stomped, 
mud  in  all  directions  again;  them  that  had  been 
missed  the  first  shot  got  it  this  time.  There  was  a 
riproaring  peal  of  thunder  and  the  wind  was  com- 
in-g  in  a  blast.  Some  of  the  people  started  to  get 
out  from  under  as  quick  as  they  could,  and  they 
did  n't  go  by  the  door;  they  lifted  the  sides  and 
crawled  under.  When  the  canvas  was  lifted  it  let 
the  wind  in  under  us  full  force  and  filled  us  up. 
And  then  the  pole  started  to  act  as  if  it  thought  it 
was  down  on  the  program  for  a  jig ;  it  done  a  one- 


HOW  THE  PROFESSOR  HELD  THE  FORT  295 

legged  dance  in  the  mud-puddle  and  threw  mud  on 
them  all  the  time  they  was  getting  out.  I  got  some 
splatted  on  my  face  and  the  Fat  Lady  looked  like 


Next  jump  it  went  up  about  a  foot'1 


she  had  been  out  when  it  was  raining  mud ;  she  got 
more  on  accounts  of  being  big.  Stubbs  stopped 
being  a  darkey  mighty  quick.  Him  and  the  Profes 
sor  went  to  work  to  haul  the  top  down.  It  was 


296  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

pretty  slow  about  coming  down ;  we  all  got  hold  of 
it  and  got  it  settled  down  inside.  Then  instead  of 
being  a  peak  sticking  up  it  was  just  the  other  way ; 
but  now  there  was  n't  anything  for  the  wind  to 
catch  except  the  walls  and  they  was  staked  pretty 
solid.  The  pole  did  n't  jump  any  now ;  it  was  just 
standing  up  like  a  mast  by  itself.  We  did  n't  have 
no  place  to  run  to  so  we  staid  under  cover  next  to 
the  walls.  The  tops  of  the  tent  was  right  down  to 
the  puddle  in  the  middle  but  there  was  room  for  us 
all  around  the  sides. 

Then  it  started  to  rain  dogs  and  cats.  And  all 
that  came  down  on  our  top  run  out  of  the  hole  in 
the  middle;  it  was  like  a  big  funnel  catching  the 
whole  rainstorm  and  pouring  it  at  the  bottom  of 
the  pole,  I  guess  if  lightning  had  struck  that  pole 
we  would  have  gathered  in  most  of  the  whole  busi 
ness.  You  would  n  't  believe  how  much  rain  falls  on 
a  space  like  that  unless  you  seen  it  spouting  into  us. 
It  made  little  streams  than  ran  in  all  directions  and 
the  Fat  Lady,  which  had  her  dress  gathered  up, 
was  busy  trying  to  step  around  on  dry  places.  But 
she  did  n't  complain  any  now.  She  did  n't  say 
nothing  at  all.  You  'd  'a'  thought  she  would,  too. 

After  a  while  the  rain  and  wind  started  to  let  up 
some.  There  was  too  much  of  it  to  last  long.  The 
thunder  was  rolling  away  off  in  the  distance  where 
it  was  going  to  some  other  town;  and  in  a  little 
while  longer  it  was  just  sprinkling.  Stubbs  waded 
in  under  the  heavy  canvas  and  found  the  end  of 
the  pulley-rope  and  hoisted  the  top  up  again  to  dry. 
They  got  the  wagon  and  sent  the  ladies  back  to  the 
old  ark  so  they  could  get  dry  too.  The  storm  was 


HOW  THE  PROFESSOR  HELD  THE  FORT  297 

all  over  and  it  was  fresh  and  green  outside,  with 
the  leaves  all  raindroppy  and  new  smells  coming 
out  on  the  air  from  everywheres.  Once  I  smelled  a 
magnolia  tree — or  maybe  it  was  the  blossoms  on  the 
vines  across  the  road ;  everything  was  freshened  up 
and  taking  a  breath  of  itself.  It  was  lots  of  fun, 
that  performance,  I  would  n't  'a'  missed  it;  but 
the  best  of  it  was  the  way  the  pole  started  in  to  be 
the  rest  of  the  minstrel  show.  You  'd  thought  it 
was  a  trained  pole. 

I  looked  over  the  whole  crowd  that  come  and  I 
did  n  't  see  nobody  at  all  that  I  gave  bills  to.  Stubbs 
he  said  he  seen  some  that  he  give  them  to.  Some 
times  I  most  thought  it  did  n't  do  no  good  to  give 
bills  around  except  just  to  advertise.  I  guess  it 
was  good  that  way. 

We  could  n 't  do  much  that  night ;  everybody  had 
enough  of  shows.  It  was  squashy  on  the  grass  and 
inside  it  was  nothing  but  tracky  mud ;  the  Professor 
said  that  if  he  had  a  dime  for  every  footprint  in 
the  tent  he  would  n 't  ask  no  more  of  Tennessee.  He 
lit  up  the  burners  and  tried  to  get  a  crowd  to  be 
lieve  what  he  had  to  say  but  it  would  n 't  work ;  so 
he  hit  his  fist  on  the  board  like  he  was  knocking  the 
show  down  to  the  highest  bidder  and  we  pulled  up 
stakes  and  struck  the  tent.  Our  tent  was  intended 
for  a  one-ring  circus ;  it  was  about  three  sizes  too 
big  for  us  but  the  Professor  said  that  did  n't  make 
no  difference  except  it  was  an  advantage.  We 
ought  to  'a'  staid  longer  in  a  big  place  like  that, 
but  we  could  n't;  we  was  a  fraud.  When  we  had 
the  tent  loaded  on  we  pulled  up  the  stakes  of  the 
boat  and  left  ourselves  to  the  river  again. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 


SAM   EXPLAINS   THE  DRIFT   OF  IT 


T  was  n't  more  than  an  hour 
or  two  till  we  passed  the  line 
and  got  shook  of  Tennessee. 
And  the  next  morning  it  was 
Mississippi  along  that  shore. 
But  it  was  Arkansaw  yet  on 
the  other  side — same  low- 
down  Arkansaw  full  of 
woods.  The  river  here  was 
about  a  mile  wide,  sometimes 
more  and  usually  less— 
maybe  a  mile  and  a  half  at  a 
bend,  and  then  only  two-thirds  of  a  mile.  It  's  just 
as  wide  away  north  on  the  upper  Mississippi;  the 
river  won't  widen  out  much  no  matter  how  many 
rivers  it  takes  in.  It  just  gets  deeper  and  swifter 
and  is  mad  and  muddy.  But  in  spring  it  gets  to  be 
thirty  miles  wide— that  is,  if  you  can  count  it  for 
the  river  when  it  is  running  through  people's  woods 
where  it  don't  belong.  People  live  in  them  Arkan 
saw  woods  when  the  river  don't  need  the  space.  I 
seen  cabins  up  on  stilts  on  accounts  of  that.  You 
see  in  the  spring,  when  there  is  more  water  going 
south  than  it  can  manage,  the  river  puts  water 


SAM  EXPLAINS  THE  DRIFT  OF  IT        299 

ashore  wherever  there  is  a  chance  until  there  is 
room  for  it  all  to  go  down  the  channel. 

Well,  that  next  day  I  laid  on  my  back  a-floating 
along  and  I  got  to  thinking  about  that  tent.  The 
pilot  of  the  Woodland  he  told  me  that  the  water 
shed  of  the  Mississippi  had  about  a  million  and  a 
half  square  miles.  And  all  the  rain  and  all  the 
melted  snow  and  everything  that  gets  to  be  water 
comes  here  to  the  middle  and  the  Mississippi  has 
got  to  handle  it. 

When  I  thought  of  all  the  water  our  tent  shed  out 
of  its  middle  I  tried  to  multiply  it  up  into  a  million 
and  a  half  square  miles ;  but  I  could  n  't  do  it. 

Then  I  come  down  and  just  tried  to  think  how  it 
would  'a'  been  if  our  tent  was  a  mountain;  and  I 
did  n't  make  out  on  that.  Well,  anyways,  if  you 
had  seen  what  I  did,  and  how  the  water  was  coming 
out  at  the  foot  of  the  pole,  you  would  mighty  soon 
see  that  the  Mississippi  has  got  to  get  busy  in  the 
springtime.  A  whole  countryful  of  States  is  shed 
ding  down  into  it. 

But  the  water  don't  overflow  Memphis,  because 
that  is  on  the  fourth  Chickasaw  bluff — I  seen  the 
first  one  about  sixty  miles  above  and  the  others  be 
tween,  but  I  did  n't  say  nothing  because  we 
would  n't  think  to  notice  them  up  on  the  Missouri. 
They  're  just  dirt  banks  and  not  very  high.  Up  on 
the  Missouri  we  would  n't  name  them,  but  here 
they  've  got  them  named  and  numbered  because  it 
is  about  the  best  they  can  do  in  all  them  hundreds 
of  miles. 

The  first  one  was  where  Fort  Pillow  was ;  that  's 


300  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

where  the  Southerners  beat  them  so  bad  that  the 
white  soldiers  and  niggers  was  driven  right  over 
into  the  river,  and  people  called  it  a  massacre.  It 
was  just  a  bluff  dirt  bank  about  as  high  as  a  steam 
boat.  It  was  all  red  dirt  and  when  I  found  there 
was  a  fort  there  once  it  looked  kind  of  bloody  dirt 
to  me.  But  I  guess  I  would  n't  'a'  thought  to  say 
anything  about  them  bluffs  if  I  had  n't  seen  Mem 
phis  on  the  last  one  and  come  to  think  how  lucky  it 
was  that  the  river  could  n  't  get  up  that  high.  They 
was  good  to  put  a  town  on— or  a  fort  like  Pillow  or 
Pickering.  Most  of  the  river  all  the  way  is  like  the 
low-down  Arkansaw  woods.  And  when  the  built- 
up  levee  breaks,  the  river  flows  down  onto  the  land. 

But  what  I  started  to  think  about  was  our  tent. 
If  anybody  had  seen  the  water  coming  out  of  the 
center  hole  and  then  thought  up  a  tent  with  a  mil 
lion  and  a  half  square  miles  on  it  and  rainstorms 
and  melting  mountains  running  down  to  the  middle 
he  would  n't  wonder  that  the  Mississippi  has  got 
to  jump  its  banks  sometimes  and  go  for  help.  Why, 
it  runs  all  over. 

We  passed  a  little  town  that  afternoon  which  the 
Professor  took  a  look  at  and  decided  it  did  n't  suit 
him.  There  was  a  good  lumber  town  waiting  a 
little  farther  down  and  he  was  anxious  to  get  its 
money.  We  done  all  right  there  and  next  we  struck 
a  town  which  did  n't  pan  out;  and  then  we  found 
out  what  was  the  matter.  It  had  been  struck  by  a 
medicine  show  two  days  before.  There  was  a  plug- 
hat  doctor  which  give  a  show  free  and  sold  medicine 
that  would  cure  most  anything-;  and  with  every 


SAM  EXPLAINS  THE  DRIFT  OF  IT       301 

bottle  of  it  you  got  a  real  genuine  Alabama  silk 
handkerchief— which  is  cotton— and  a  little  hunk 
of  everlasting  ambergrease,  which  is  tallow  with 
some  cologne  in  it.  And  that  fetched  them  strong 
and  took  their  money  so  that  the  place  would  n't 
be  good  and  ready  for  a  show  until  it  had  a  month 
or  so  to  get  over  it.  The  Professor  was  pretty  mad 
to  have  his  town  cut  into  like  that ;  he  told  us  how 
he  was  losing  money  and  called  our  particular  at 
tention  to  it. 

After  we  passed  the  Arkansaw  we  did  n't  strike 
the  towns  so  often  for  a  while ;  and  before  long  we 
was  passing  islands  down  into  the  eighties— they 
give  up  naming  them  long  ago.  I  guess  they 
needed  all  the  names  for  the  bends ;  we  was  floating 
round  bends  all  the  time  this  way  and  that— Rowdy 
Bend  and  Miller's  Bend  and  Bachelor's  Bend  and 
such.  Just  between  Bachelor's  Bend  and  Shirt-tail 
Bend  we  commenced  to  do  good  because  the  hands 
was  getting  money  for  picking  cotton.  It  was  along 
in  September  now  and  cotton  picking  was  getting 
started  up  busy  there ;  there  was  plantations  all 
along  and  the  big  fields  was  all  busted  out  into  snow 
balls.  There  was  enough  of  it  around  that  bend 
to  'a '  made  a  million  shirt-tails,  I  bet.  The  pickers 
was  busy  with  the  big  bags  tied  round  theirselves 
and  them  going  it  with  both  hands ;  there  was  nigger 
mammies  with  red  and  yellow  bandanas  and  black 
faces  in  the  white  cotton,  and  there  was  big  buck 
niggers  and  old  men  with  gray  whiskers  and  little 
pickaninnies  all  a-picking  it;  they  was  all  sailing 
in  and  leaving  the  leafy  bushes  behind.  And  some- 


302  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

times  there  was  an  overseer  with  scales  to  weigh 
how  much  each  of  them  brought  and  marking  it 
down  on  their  account.  Little  niggers  can  do  it, 
too,  and  get  it  marked  down  on  the  family  account, 
only  they  don 't  stick  to  business  quite  so  steady. 

The  Professor  said  the  good  times  would  be  going 
right  along  steady  now  for  three  months.  You  see 
when  you  Ve  gone  through  a  cotton  field  and  picked 
all  the  cotton  you  come  to  you  Ve  got  to  start  right 
in  and  do  it  again.  And  then  you  Ve  got  to  do  it 
again.  And  even  when  the  frost  has  killed  the 
leaves  and  you  only  leave  bare,  twiggy  bushes  be 
hind  it  keeps  busting  out.  So  you  see  they  can't 
get  their  money  all  at  once  and  spend  it;  we  could 
poke  along  for  the  next  three  months  and  be  right 
on  time  at  every  place. 

It  's  a  good  thing  for  shows  that  cotton  does  that 
way— specially  scow  shows. 

The  way  things  was  coming  now  the  Professor 
made  more  towns ;  he  was  picking  every  little  bush. 
Sometimes  we  would  come  in  right  after  that 
medicine  show  and  the  Professor  was  getting  mad 
der  about  being  interfered  with  like  that.  Some 
times  we  would  see  lots  of  new  red  and  yellow  ban 
dannas,  which  I  guess  was  the  real  Alabama  silk. 
The  islands  run  up  to  one  hundred  in  no  time  and 
we  was  working  right  along  closer  to  Vicksburg. 
We  done  lots  of  things,  mostly  the  same,  that  would 
make  anybody  tired  to  tell  it ;  I  got  tired  of  it  my 
self. 

The  Professor  he  did  n't  pay  up  regular  and  the 
curiosities  was  always  asking  for  some  of  their 


SAM  EXPLAINS  THE  DRIFT  OF  IT        303 

money.  He  said  he  would  like  to  give  them  their 
money  if  he  thought  he  could  trust  them  with  it. 
But  he  said  he  just  knew  that  they  would  use  it  to 
go  and  leave  him  in  the  lurch  and  he  would  have  to 
wait  and  see  that  they  did  n't  play  him  dirty,,  So 
what  could  they  do  about  it?  There  was  nowheres 
to  go  and  get  a  job  in  their  line. 

The  Professor  was  one  of  them  kind  that  if  he 
owed  you  money  he  could  talk  to  you  so  that  you 
would  feel  in  debt  to  him.  One  time  when  we  had 
done  pretty  well  the  curiosities  went  and  asked  if 
they  could  n't  have  their  money.  He  started  right 
in  and  give  them  a  lecture  about  ingratitude  and 
all  the  things  they  had  to  be  thankful  for. 

"Why,"  he  says,  "when  I  was  a  boy— and  learn 
ing  the  business — with  a  WAGON  show — there  was 
times  when  I  would  have  to  walk  all  night  in  hilly 
country  behind  the  bear  cage  with  a  CHUNK  in 
my  arms.  ALL  NIGHT,  mind  you— dragging  my 
feet  in  the  mud  and  the  elephant  chugging  along 
behind  me.  And  when  the  horses  stopped  to 
breathe  on  a  muddy  hill  I  would  have  to  shove  the 
chunk  under  that  hind  wheel  just  as  the  bear  cage 
settled  back.  And  when  they  started  up  I  would 
have  to  grab  up  that  chunk  and  follow  along  again. 
And  me  half  asleep.  And  the  chunk  getting  heavier 
all  the  time.  I  have  done  it  when  it  was  so  muddy 
you  could  hear  the  elephant  chugging  half  a  mile 
away.  You  folks  don't  REALIZE  how  easy  you  Ve 
got  it.  Why,  I  have  seen  the  day  when  if  I  seen  a 
chance  to  climb  up  on  the  bear  cage— which  had  a 
brass  railing  around  it  to  HANG  ONTO  when 


304 


PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 


you  're  sleeping— I  would  think  I  was  in  LUCK. 
But  I  COULD  NT.  I  would  have  to  grab  up  the 
big  pitch-pine  chunk,  all  muddy  and  heavy,  and 
keep  dragging  along  after  the  wagon  with  it  in  my 
arms.  You  folks  don't  KNOW  the  show  business; 
you  come  here  and  talk  and  whine  to  me  like  a  lot 
of  amateurs— just  a  lot  of  AMATEURS.  Why, 
sometimes  I  wished  I  was  A  BEAR.  I  wished  I  was 
A  BEAR  that  could  ride  and  be  inside  out  of  the 
rain  and  be  took  care  of.  This  here  bein'  a  freak 
ain't  no  harder  than  bein'  a  bear— not  a  BIT 


With  a  chunk  in  my  arms 


SAM  EXPLAINS  THE  DRIFT  OF  IT        305 

harder.  Just  the  same  thing.  All  you  have  to  do 
is  just  be.  And  you  get  transportation  and  all  trav 
eling  expenses.  And  just  FLOATING— livin'  right 
at  home  every  inch  of  the  way.  Why,  I  've  seen  the 
day  that  if  I  could  'a'  been  a  Fat  Lady  on  a  scow 
you  could  n't  'a'  dragged  me  out  of  the  job." 

He  would  go  on  like  that  and  show  them  they  was 
just  amateurs.  And  when  he  got  through  they 
would  be  glad  they  was  on  top  of  earth  and  breath 
ing.  He  said  that  one  of  them  convict  niggers  that 
can  put  their  ball  and  chain  in  the  wheel-barrow 
while  they  're  working  has  got  it  EASY  beside  a 
real  show  man.  He  left  it  to  Stubbs,  who  had  done 
it,  too,  and  he  said  it  was  so.  And  that  settled  it. 

A  couple  of  days  after  that  the  medicine  show, 
which  was  going  on  wheels,  struck  into  the  river 
again  and  we  did  n  't  do  very  well.  So  then  the  Pro 
fessor  pointed  out  that  it  was  a  case  of  making 
money  one  place  and  losing  another  and  that  he 
was  starting  to  go  behind.  And  he  said  they  would 
all  have  to  help  him  get  up  again;  if  they  did  n't 
he  would  bust  and  lose  all  that  was  coming  to  them 
and  he  would  n 't  like  to  see  them  do  that.  You  see 
when  a  show  gets  into  your  debt  and  is  doing  bad 
you  Ve  got  to  help  it  along  to  save  yourself  and  get 
your  money.  Because,  you  see,  it  's  you  that  's  the 
show ;  and  when  you  quit  there  ain  't  any.  So  you 
can't  get  nothing.  So  the  more  it  owes  you  the 
more  you  Ve  got  to  stick  right  to  it.  And  the  more 
the  manager  owes  you  the  more  independent  he  can 
be  and  boss  you  around  because  then  it  is  your 
show,  too.  If  you  make  a  lot  he  wins,  and  if  you 

20 


306  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

don 't  make  anything  you  lose ;  that  's  the  way  it  is 
with  a  show  that  ain't  got  nothing  but  you.  So 
what  could  them  freaks  do  ?  He  had  them  sure  be 
cause  he  kept  them  busted.  If  he  paid  them  they 
could  V  quit.  He  knew  his  business,  Stubbs  said 
so. 

But  Stubbs  did  n't  bother  none.  He  got  his 
money  right  from  the  start  because  he  would  'a' 
quit  the  minute  ho  did  n  't.  And  the  Professor  knew 
it.  The  others  would  sympathize  with  each  other 
and  tell  their  troubles  behind  the  Professor's  back, 
but  Stubbs  just  tended  to  business.  He  said  float 
ing  on  a  scow  was  just  a  vacation  for  him  till  he 
was  in  shape  for  the  big  show  again ;  and  as  long  as 
he  was  paid  fair  for  an  honest  job  of  tumbling  it 
suited  him  all  right.  Stubbs  told  me  that  the  reason 
the  Professor  would  n't  give  them  a  cent  now  was 
because  we  was  coming  near  to  Vicksburg,  which 
was  a  big  town,  and  if  they  had  money  they  could 
take  the  railroad  and  go  somewhere  else.  And  the 
Professor  could  n't  afford  to  lose  the  money  he 
could  make  out  of  them. 

One  Saturday  afternoon  when  me  and  Rags  was 
laying  down  and  feeling  dozy  from  the  night  before, 
Stubbs  give  me  a  poke  and  says,  "Get  up,  Sammy; 
here  's  the  city  of  the  hundred  hills."  I  sat  up 
and  rubbed  my  eyes  and  there  we  was  at  a  big  town 
where  the  bank  was  all  heaved  up  into  round  hills 
crowded  together.  That  woke  me  right  up  and  done 
me  good;  there  ain't  anything  you  get  more  home 
sick  for  than  hills.  By  the  time  we  had  made  fast, 
and  the  Professor  had  gone  up-town  and  arranged 


SAM  EXPLAINS  THE  DRIFT  OF  IT  307 
to  pitch  the  tent  and  give  a  show  there,  it  was 
pretty  late  in  the  evening ;  and  when  he  come  back 
he  told  us  the  next  day  was  going  to  be  Sunday  and 
we  would  have  to  lay  over.  So  we  just  put  up  the 
tent  to  let  it  stand  over  Sunday  and  advertise  it 
self  ;  the  Professor  said  he  did  n't  mind  Sunday 
coming,  considering  the  way  it  happened,  because  it 
would  more  than  pay  to  use  a  day  that  way,  anyhow. 
On  Sunday  morning  we  got  up  late  and  found 
that  the  Giant  and  the  Tattooed  Man  had  skipped ; 
them  and  their  things  was  gone.  The  Professor 
started  right  in  and  give  us  fits  about  them,  saying 
how  surprised  he  was  to  be  taken  unawares  like 
that  and  it  was  just  what  he  expected  they  would 
do  when  they  got  here.  He  went  on  and  said  what 
an  embarrassing  predicament  it  was  for  a  man  to 
lose  his  main  attractions  like  that  and  he  was  glad 
they  went  because  they  was  n't  no  good,  anyhow. 
He  knew  very  well  they  would  skip  out  if  he  paid 
them  their  wages  and  so  he  was  glad  he  did  n't; 
he  said  they  did  n't  deserve  it  and  he  was  glad  he 
held  back  till  he  found  out  like  this.  It  was  n  't  the 
first  time  he  had  guessed  right.  He  said  they  was 
just  a  pair  of  them  kind  nowadays  that  just  look 
out  for  their  own  interests  all  the  time  and  have  n 't 
got  no  loyalty  or  appreciation  of  business  respon 
sibilities.  And  he  never  did  pay  anybody  that 
went  and  quit  him  that  way;  it  was  one  rule  and 
principle  he  always  made.  Them  kind  don't  de 
serve  no  wages  and  he  'd  be  blamed  if  they  ever 
come  it  over  him ;  he  had  a  pretty  good  knowledge 
of  that  unprincipled  class  of  people. 


308 


PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 


Well,  when  he  got  started  on  that  principle  busi 
ness  he  opened  up  and  preached  a  regular  Sunday 
sermon  on  Ingratitude ;  I  guess  it  lasted  most  an 
hour.  After  he  had  shown  what  a  serious  position 
such  people  put  a  man  in  he  said  it  did  n't  make 
no  difference,  anyhow,  because  it  would  only  be 
necessary  for  him  to  get  out  his  Magic  outfit  and 
for  Stubbs  to  stretch  the  Minstrels  a  little  and  the 
show  would  be  as  good  as  ever;  maybe  better.  I 
guess  Stubbs  got  tired  of  his  talking;  anyways  I. 
did. 


The  Giant  and  the  Tattooed  Man  had  skipped  ' ' 


CHAPTER  XXIV 


STUBBS  GETS  SOME      BUSINESS 


OME  on,  Sammy,"  Stubbs 
says.  "Let  '&  go  and  take  a 
walk  for  a  change." 

So  we  went  up -town.  I 
guess  maybe  there  was  a 
hundred  hills,  anyways,  a 
dozen  or  so  all  run  together. 
Anyways,  there  was  plenty 
of  them  for  the  people  to 
bore  into  them  and  live  when 

the     soldiers     was     shooting 

bomb-shells    over    into    them 

every  day ;  but  now  they  are  living  on  top  again. 
Every  place  was  locked  up  and  quiet  where  the 
stores  was.  After  a  while  we  passed  a  church 
where  they  was  singing  "Hark  from  the  tombs 
a  doleful  sound";  it  was  pretty  solemn  and  I 
was  glad  when  we  got  out  of  range.  It  was 
pretty  hilly.  We  went  up  and  down  the  prin 
cipal  street,  which  I  mean  that  we  went  straight 
ahead,  and  after  a  while  we  was  clean  out  of 
the  city  into  the  country  where  it  was  quiet — but 
a  different  kind  of  quiet.  It  was  a  fine  warm  Sun 
day  morning  with  everything  all  green  and  beauti- 


310  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

ful  and  the  birds  a-singing;  we  rambled  right 
along  and  enjoyed  ourselves. 

After  a  while  it  sounded  like  we*  was  coming  to 
another  church;  I  heard  something  like  organ 
music  in  the  distance.  It  was  a  little  nigger 
church.  It  was  all  open  on  accounts  of  the  warm 
weather  and  there  was  smoke  and  music  coming  out 
of  the  doors  and  windows. 

"It  looks  like  they  had  a  smudge.  Let  's  go  in 
side  and  sit  down,"  says  Stubbs.  "Maybe  I  could 
pick  up  some  business. ' '  You  see  that  was  what  he 
called  a  new  idea  for  a  step  in  dancing  or  a  joke; 
it  is  show  talk.  Stubbs  was  always  intending  to 
quit  clowning  and  get  into  minstrels,  where  he  could 
travel  round  in  style,  so  he  was  always  looking  for 
minstrel  business.  So  we  took  off  our  hats  and  went 
in  and  sat  down  respectable. 

The  preacher  had  just  got  through  giving  out 
announcements  and  now  he  sat  down  and  looked 
respectable  and  solemn,  and  then  the  congregation 
made  it  seem  quieter  by  coughing  and  getting  set 
tled.  The  coughing  come  from  the  smudge  fire  in 
the  stove;  the  door  of  it  was  open  and  the  long 
pipe  was  disjointed  so  that  there  would  n't  be  any 
draft  to  make  a  real  fire.  That  way  it  would  just 
smoke  a  little  out  of  the  stove  door  and  the  end  of 
the  pipe  and  keep  out  mosquitoes  and  gnats  and 
such  things ;  and  I  whispered  to  Stubbs  that  there 
was  a  good  deal  of  sense  in  that  way  of  getting  rid 
of  them.  But  Stubbs  said  there  was  a  good  deal 
more  incense— he  could  think  a  joke  right  up  that 
way.  Just  when  the  preacher  sat  down,  a  girl  in 


STUBBS  GETS  SOME  "BUSINESS' 


311 


her  Sunday  clothes  got  up  in  the  back  and  came 
forward  up  the  middle  aisle  carrying  a  big  frosted 
cake  before  her  with  nuts  on  it.  She  set  it  right  up 
on  the  pulpit  and  then  sat  down  on  one  of  the 
front  pews.  She  took  out  her  fan  and  fanned  a 
little  and  nodded  how-do  sociable  to  the  black 
mammy  next  to  her 
like  she  thought  what 
she  had  done  was  n't 
nothing.  The  preacher 
looked  polite  and  nodded 
his  head  a  quarter  of 
an  inch  and  then  looked 
solemn  again.  Stubbs 
he  said  that  the  reason 
she  sat  down  in  the 
back  at  first  was  be 
cause  she  wanted  to 
promenade  the  whole 
length  with  the  cake— 
he  could  see  into  every 
little  thing  like  that. 
And  mostly  he  was  right. 
One  of  the  deacons  got 

up  quiet  and  went  to  look  at  the  smudge  fire  and 
when  he  was  through  rattling  the  poker  the 
preacher  gave  out  the  hymn  and  they  sang  again; 
the  tune  it  was  "Rise  and  Shine."  Then  they 
sung  "Hard  Trials,"  and  ended  up  with  one  that 
I  don't  know  the  name  of,  but  it  is  easy  to  remem 
ber.  And  it  was  mighty  good  singing— just  like 
an  organ. 


Carrying  a  big  frosted 
cake  " 


312  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

"My  Lord  deliberated  Daniel; 
My  Lord  deliberated  Daniel; 
My  Lord  deliberated  Daniel- 
Why  can't  he  deliberate  me? 
I  met  a  pilgrim  on  the  way, 
An'  I  ask  him  whar  's  he  gwine : 
I  'm  bound  for  Canaan's  happy  land, 
An'  dis  is  de  shoutin'  band— 
Go  on !" 

This  is  all  I  got  of  that  one;  Stubbs  he  remem 
bered  and  wrote  it  down  that  way  because  he  said 
it  was  good  business.  After  the  singing  the 
preacher  stood  up  before  the  pulpit  and  prayed 
some  about  all  these  here  material  blessings  which 
had  been  showered  down  and  then  looked  solemn 
and  said  what  he  was  going  to  preach  about.  What 
he  preached  about  was  Pride.  He  opened  the  Bible 
right  near  the  front  cover  and  started  to  tell  about 
rivers;  and  right  there  I  got  interested  and  paid 
attention.  Anything  about  rivers  always  suits  me. 
He  said  that  in  the  Garden  of  Eden  there  was  four 
rivers.  And  he  opened  to  the  second  chapter  of  the 
Genesis  and  read  about  it:  "The  name  of  the  first 
is  Pison;  that  it  is  which  encompasseth  the  whole 
land  of  Havilah  where  there  is  gold."  That  got 
me  more  interested  and  I  paid  close  attention.  The 
reason  it  is  called  Pison  is  because  it  is  in  a  land 
of  gold ;  and  he  said  that  was  the  point.  Gold,  he 
says,  can  pison  the  mind  and  pison  the  soul  and 
where  there  is  a  lot  it  can  pison  the  whole  coun 
try.  That  is  the  reason,  he  says,  that  this  river  is 
put  down  the  first.  *  *  Kase  why  ? "  he  says.  *  *  Kase 


STUBBS  GETS  SOME  "BUSINESS"         313 

gold  is  de  worst  kin'  ob  pison."  But  he  did  n't  get 
around  to  the  other  three  rivers  or  where  they 
emptied  into;  he  just  mentioned  it  because  gold 
makes  people  proud. 

Well,  that  sounded  like  pretty  good  sense  and  I 
did  n't  know  it  before.  I  did  n't  know  a  nigger 
could  get  up  anything  so  sensible.  He  kept  on  and 
just  throwed  it  into  Pride.  And  he  said  that  Pride 
goeth  before  a  fall.  Well,  that  's  so,  too.  And  he 
said  that  Pride  goeth  around  like  a  raging  lion. 
I  don't  know  how  that  is,  but  I  've  seen  people  my 
self  that  went  around  with  their  nose  so  high  in 
the  air  that  they  can't  see  nothing  till  some  time 
they  run  into  a  clothes-line  or  maybe  step  into  a 
post-hole  that  somebody  has  just  finished ;  and  then 
you  bet  they  get  it.  He  kept  me  listening  for  a 
little  while  and  then  he  got  clean  out  of  the  channel 
and  did  n't  seem  to  know  where  he  was  steering. 
He  thumped  the  pulpit  and  talked  Bible  words 
that  I  could  n't  make  head  nor  tail  of.  It  was  just 
religion. 

I  just  sat  and  looked  out  of  the  open  window.  It 
was  all  sunny  outside  with  green  trees  and  fields 
and  the  river  flowing  away  off.  Pretty  soon  there 
come  a  boat— she  was  a  side-wheeler— with  the 
white  steam  shoving  up  out  of  her  pipes  and  her  so 
far  away  you  could  n't  hear  her;  she  was  like  a 
steamboat  framed  in  a  picture,  only  more  natural. 
I  sat  and  watched  how  long  it  would  take  her  to  go 
clean  across  the  window.  She  kept  crawling  along 
and  crawling  along  so  slow  you  'd  think  she 
could  n't  make  St.  Louis  in  two  years;  but  before 


314  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

long  she  had  went  past  and  out  of  sight,  and  then 
I  heard  her  three-toned  whistle  like  niggers  sing 
ing  together  for  the  landing.  I  sat  and  watched  if 
another  boat  would  come  past  the  window.  But 
none  come.  Only  a  big  yellow  bee  flew  across.  My 
eyes  was  kind  of  watery  from  the  smoke  and  I 
wiped  them  with  my  sleeve  so  I  could  see.  And 
then  I  seen  Stubbs  wiping  his  eyes. 

They  was  all  getting  warmed  up  and  shouting 
"Hallelujah!"  and  "Amen!"  every  little  while, 
first  one  and  then  another,  and  I  guess  they  thought 
me  and  Stubbs  was  feeling  bad  about  religion; 
anyways,  the  preacher  looked  at  us  and  said  he  was 
glad  to  see  the  white  folks  coming  to  hear  the  Word. 

Stubbs  he  looked  awful  long-faced  and  solemn 
like  he  always  did  when  he  was  thinking  of  jokes. 
The  "Amens"  kept  coming  thicker,  and  all  of  a 
sudden  they  began  to  sing : 

"Oh,  walk  togedder,  children,  don't  get  weary; 
Walk  togedder,  children,  don't  get  weary; 
Walk  togedder,  children,  don't  get  weary,— 
Dere  's  a  great  camp-meetin'  in  de  Promised  Lan'. 

Gwine  to  mourn  an'  nebber  tire, 

Mourn  an'  nebber  tire, 

Mourn  an'  nebber  tire,— 
Dere  's  a  great  camp-meetin'  in  de  Promised  Lan'. 

"Oh,  slap  your  hands,  children,  don't  you  get  weary; 
Slap  your  hands,  children,  don't  get  weary; 
Slap  your  hands,  children,  don't  get  weary,— 
Dere  's  a  great  camp-meetin'  in  de  Promised  Lan'. 

They  got  to  all  slapping  their  hands  and  keeping 


STUBBS  GETS  SOME  "BUSINESS"    315 

time  and  things  was  warming  up.  A  big  nigger 
mammy  was  singing  high  and  slapping ;  there  was 
all  hands  that  went  slappety-slap  and  some  went 
cloppety-clop.  It  made  me  think  of  loading  the 
old  Speed  when  they  was  all  stepping  together.  A 
nigger  sings  when  he  works  and  just  the  same  way 
he  works  when  he  sings ;  he  is  tunes  all  over.  And 
that  way  they  kept  on  ever  so  long. 

"Oh,  pat  your  foot,  children,  don't  you  get  weary; 
Pat  your  foot,  children,  don't  get  weary; 
Pat  your  foot,  children,  don't  get  weary,— 
Dere  's  a  great  camp-meetin'  in  de  Promised  Lan'. 

Gwine  to  shout  an'  nebber  tire, 

Shout  an'  nebber  tire, 

Shout  an'  nebber  tire, — 
Dere  's  a  great  camp-meetin'  in  de  Promised  Lan'. 

"Oh,  feel  de  spirit  movin',  don't  you  get  weary; 
Feel  de  spirit  movin',  don't  get  weary; 
Feel  de  spirit  movin',  don't  get  weary, — 
Dere  's  a  great  camp-meetin'  in  de  Promised  Lan'. 

"Oh,  now  I  'm  gettin'  happy,  don't  get  weary; 
Now  I  'm  gettin'  happy,  don't  get  weary; 
Now  I  'm  gettin'  happy,  don't  get  weary, — 
Dere  's  a  great  camp-meetin'  in  de  Promised  Lan'. 

"I  feel  so  happy,  don't  you  get  weary; 
Feel  so  happy,  don't  you  get  weary; 
Feel  so  happy,  don't  you  get  weary, — 
Dere  's  a  great  camp-meetin'  in  de  Promised  Lan'. 

Oh,  fly  and  nebber  tire, 

Fly  and  nebber  tire, 

Fly  and  nebber  tire,— 
Dere  's  a  great  camp-meetin'  in  de  Promised  Lan'. 


316  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

By  that  time  you  could  see  the  spirit  moving 
them  all  over  and  swaying  them  from  side  to  side ; 
and  the  girl  that  brung  the  cake  was  standing  up 
and  almost  flying.  The  preacher  had  gone  and 
took  a  seat  in  the  back  and  he  just  sat  comfortable 
and  contented  and  clapped  his  hands  like  he  was 
willing  to  let  them  do  the  rest ;  he  was  big  and  fat. 
He  just  clapped  his  hands  soft  and  easy  and  kept 
saying,  '  *  Keep  it  up,  chillen.,  keep  it  up  ! "  One  of 
the  deacons  passed  around  the  collection,  which  I 
guess  he  had  forgot,  and  I  was  getting  so  hungry  I 
'most  wished  they  would  pass  around  the  cake. 
Stubbs  put  in  five  cents  and  told  me  to  wait  a  while 
longer ;  it  looked  as  if  he  could  get  some  new  steps. 
While  the  deacon  was  getting  the  hat  to  pass,  he 
started  up  a  solemner  one : 

"Time  is  coming  daf  sinner  must  die; 
I  heard  a  lumbering  in  de  sky; 
Time  is  coming  dat  sinner  must  die,— 
Dat  make  me  t'ink  my  time  was  nigh." 

But  after  the  collection  was  tooK  up  they  went 
back  to  the  cheerful  kind,  which  somebody  started 
up ;  that  one  was  * '  Inching  Along. ' ' 

"Keep  a-inching  along;  keep  a-inching  along; 

Jesus  will  come  by  and  by. 
Keep  a-inching  along  like  a  poor  inch-worm; 
Jesus  will  come  by  and  by. 
'T  was  a  inch  by  inch  I  sought  the  Lord; 

Jesus  will  come  by  and  by. 
And  a  inch  by  inch  he  blessed  my  soul; 
Jesus  will  come  by  and  by." 


STUBBS  GETS  SOME  "BUSINESS"         317 

The  girl  which  brung  the  cake  stood  up  and 
started  to  sway  and  she  tossed  off  her  hat  and  she 
dropped  the  ribbon  from  around  her  neck  like  she 
was  getting  ready  to  sail  in  and  have*  it  out.  When 
she  was  all  ready  she  started  to  whirl  around  and 
holler  '  *  Glory ! ' '  and  while  she  was  going  it  I  seen 
her  gloves  go  two  different  directions  like  they  just 
whirled  off  of  her.  Somebody  else  hollered  ''Hal 
lelujah!"  and  right  then  the  old  fat  mammy  got 
up  and  wobbled  in  her  place  awhile  and  then  she 
come*  into  the  aisle  and  started  to  inch.  She  inched 
up  and  down  the  aisle,  shaking  all  over,  and  every 
step  she  inched  you  could  feel  the  floor  a-giving.  I 
was  awful  glad  it  was  n't  our  Fat  Lady  that  was 
doing  the  inching.  Whenever  she  got  clean  to  the 
end  of  the  aisle  she  would  turn  and  inch  back 
again  and  that  way  she  kept  a-going  it,  holding  up 
her  hands  and  singing.  And  the  "Amens"  and 
"Hallelujahs"  was  coming  up  here  and  there  like 
they  was  just  sprout-up  out  of  the  music.  She 
would  sing  one  line  of  the  chorus  and  the  rest 
would  all  come  in  on  the  by-and-by  part;  it  was 
fine  singing.  There  could  n't  be  nothing  better 
than  the  way  they  would  sing  in  tune  and  all  come 
in  together  on  the  chorus,  answering  each  other 
back  and  forth.  And  you  could  feel  the  floor  keep 
ing  time. 


"We  '11  inch  and  inch  and  inch  along; 

Jesus  will  come  by  and  by. 
And  inch  and  inch  till  we  get  home; 
Jesus  will  come  by  and  by." 


318  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

I  happened  to  look  up  and  seen  that  the  long 
stovepipe  was  sinking  at  a  joint;  it  seemed  to  be 
settling  inch  by  inch.  I  leaned  and  told  Stubbs 


\ 

He  dropped  it  mighty  quick 


about  it,  but  he  just  looked  solemn  and  did  n't  let 
on.  Stubbs  could  look  awful  sad  when  he  tried. 
The  whole  length  of  it  was  only  swung  on  one  wire 
and  while  I  was  looking  again  it  come  in  two— I 


STUBBS  GETS  SOME  "BUSINESS"    319 

mean  it  come  in  five  or  six— and  when  it  struck  the 
floor  every  joint  of  it  done  its  own  clattering.  It 
brought  them  all  to  a  stop  where  they  was ;  I  guess 
they  thought  the  lumbering  in  the  skies  had  come 
true.  Well,  it  would  'a'  surprised  me  if  I  had  n't 
seen  it  first;  it  was  like  sheet-iron  thunder.  The 
deacon  that  was  boss  of  the  stove  come  right  over  to 
do  something  about  it;  he  just  stood  looking  at  it 
but  did  n't  know  what  to  do.  Then  the  preacher, 
which  had  stopped  marking  time  with  his  hands, 
stood  up  and  raised  his  hand  and  said  in  a  loud 
voice:  "Pick  it  up,  Brudder  Jackson;  pick  it  up! 
De  La-a-awd  woan '  let  it  burn  you ! ' ' 

Brudder  Jackson  let  them  all  see  that  he  believed 
it;  he  picked  it  up.  But  he  dropped  it  mighty 
quick;  it  burned  him  the  same  as  an  ordinary 
stovepipe,  and  made  another  clatter  and  took  an 
extra  roll  or  two.  Brudder  Jackson  put  his  fingers 
in  his  mouth  and  then  wiped  them  on  his  pants; 
he  did  n't  say  nothing.  He  just  went  and  sat 
down.  I  guess  the  preacher  did  n't  know  the 
smudge  had  got  to  be  real  fire  when  he  said  that. 

The  girl  which  brung  the  cake  was  picking  up 
her  things  quiet  and  fixing  them  straight,  so  I 
thought  it  was  all  over,  but  it  was  n't.  She  was 
only  done  with  her  part ;  the  others  was  just  getting 
started  in.  Somebody  said  "Hallelujah!"  and 
then  it  started  up  again. 

"Oh,  look  up  yonder,  what  I  see; 
Den  a'  Hallelujah  to  de  Lamb. 
Dere  's  a  long  tall  angel  conrin'  a'ter  me; 
Den  a7  Hallelujah  to  de  Lamb." 


320  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

They  did  n't  have  no  organ  at  all  but  they 
did  n't  need  none,  the  sound  of  it  was  right  in 
their  voices.  The  smoke  was  getting  pretty  smarty 
on  my  eyes  so  I  wiped  them  again  on  my  coat 
sleeve.  And  Stubbs  he  wiped  off  a  tear  that  had 
got  started  down  his  face.  Stubbs  looked  so  sad 
that  if  you  did  n  't  know  he  was  a  clown  you  would 
'a'  thought  maybe  he  was  crying.  I  wanted  to  go 
but  he  said  to  wait  a  while  longer,  he  was  getting 
some  good  ideas  for  business.  Some  had  their 
hands  up  making  motions  and  some  was  swaying 
and  moving  all  over  and  some  was  marking  time 
and  shouting.  I  bet  if  Stubbs  had  got  up  with  the 
tears  in  his  eyes  and  done  a  couple  of  flip-flaps  and 
a  back-summerset  they  would  'a'  thought  he  had 
got  religion  better  than  all  of  them. 

The  old  mammy  got  to  rambling  around  again 
and  shaking  hands  with  everybody  and  shouting 
"Glory!"  and  when  she  come  to  me  and  seen  me 
wiping  my  eye  she  grabbed  me  and  hugged  me  to 
her  and  said,  "Bress  de  lamb  !"  I  was  most  smoth 
ered.  I  can  hold  my  breath  and  stay  under  pretty 
long  but  when  she  let  go  it  was  about  time  for  me 
to  come  up  and  get  air.  Well,  that  was  enough  for 
me.  When  she  let  loose  I  got  out  of  there.  Then 
Stubbs  come  out,  too,  and  we  went  down  the  road. 
We  kept  straight  on  to  the  scow  except  we  stopped 
awhile  where  there  was  some  bushes  so  that  Stubbs 
could  practise  up  his  act  a  little  and  fix  all  the 
things  he  had  learned  in  his  memory.  He  used  me 
for  the  audience  and  he  told  me  to  watch  close  and 
not  think  it  was  foolishness,  because  it  was  n't. 


STUBBS  GETS  SOME  "BUSINESS"    321 

Well,  I  thought  all  the  time  that  he  had  been  sit 
ting  in  that  church  holding  his  laugh  in,  but  now 
I  seen  he  had  n't.  He  had  been  sitting  there  as 
long-faced  as  a  deacon  and  taking  them  in  as 
serious  as  could  be;  that  was  how  he  built  an  act 
up.  You  have  got  to  watch  close  and  do  thinking 
when  you  want  to  be  a  minstrels. 

He  said  I  must  watch  close  and  let  him  know 
which  of  his  ways  seemed  the  most  natural.  He 
would  keep  doing  a  thing  over  until  he  could  do  it 
just  so.  Sometimes  he  did  n't  suit  himself  at  all; 
then  he  would  stop  and  think  a  little  and  do  it 
better.  You  would  n't  believe  how  he  improved; 
he  just  took  in  everything.  When  I  seen  him  sing 
"Doo-dah"  up  in  Memphis  I  thought  it  was  as 
good  as  could  be ;  but  he  was  getting  better.  You 
would  n't  know  just  how  he  changed  it  but  it  was 
more  natural;  it  was  niggery  every  way.  Well,  I 
never  knew  before  that  you  had  to  study  to  be 
funny.  I  thought  you  just  come  out  and  cut  up 
and  acted  the  fool. 

When  he  had  got  some  business  so  that  it  suited 
him  we  kept  on  down  the  road.  And  while  we  was 
going  back  to  the  boat  he  told  me  something ;  it  was 
a  secret.  Stubbs  was  n't  a  first-class  acrobatic 
clown  no  more.  Nobody  would  'a'  noticed  it  yet 
except  himself ;  he  could  do  about  as  good  as  ever 
but  it  was  coming  harder  on  him.  He  said  a  man 
can't  be  first-class  except  for  a  few  years  when  he 
has  got  the  bounce  in  him.  And  a  couple  of  seasons 
ago  he  began  to  notice  that  his  first  days  was  over ; 
he  was  beginning  to  go  back.  When  he  come  into 

21 


322  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

the  business  fresh  he  bloomed  out  of  a  sudden  into 
a  principal  leaper;  he  used  to  go  over  the  horses 
and  elephants  as  easy  as  flying  and  he  enjoyed  the 
hard,  quick  turns.  He  could  do  it  yet,  too,  but  he 
noticed  a  difference  in  himself,  'specially  in  the 
spring-board  work.  It  did  n't  come  so  natural  to 
him ;  sometimes  he  felt  there  was  n  't  even  so  much 
style  in  his  back-summersets  no  more.  He  did  n't 
like  to  think  of  being  second-class;  he  was  used  to 
being  good.  After  a  while  he  would  be  a  busted- 
down  clown;  and  what  good  is  that?  It  was  all 
getting  to  be  just  hard  work;  'specially  the  leaps. 
So  then  I  seen  why  he  took  them  things  so  serious. 

That  was  why  he  was  studying  up  niggers.  He 
said  if  he  could  get  up  some  kind  of  a  darkey  act 
that  people  would  take  a  notion  to,  it  would  settle 
things  for  him.  It  would  be  something  that  he 
could  always  do  even  when  he  was  old ;  because  nig 
gers  take  things  easy.  Stubbs  said  that  a  man  like 
him  can  be  a  nigger  when  he  is  sixty  years  old; 
but  he  can't  be  no  acrobatic  clown  when  he  is 
sixty.  Well,  I  did  n't  see  how  he  was  going  to  do 
dancing  and  such  things  when  he  was  that  old ;  and 
I  told  him  so.  He  thought  it  over  awhile  and  then 
he  says : 

"Did  you  ever  see  a  nigger  that  was  a  great 
acrobat  or  a  leaper?" 

"No,"  I  says,  "I  never  would  'a'  thought  to 
think  of  it.  That  's  white  men's  kind  of  work." 

"That  's  the  idea  exactly,"  he  says. 

But  Stubbs  did  n't  have  the  ginger  in  him  like 
he  used  to,  he  said  he  was  n 't  an  acrobatic  artist  no 


STUBBS  GETS  SOME  "BUSINESS"    323 

more.  So  I  was  glad  he  was  getting  his  other  busi 
ness  so  good;  he  was  as  good  as  a  real  nigger  as 
far  as  I  could  see.  "But  that  's  one  thing,"  I 
says,  "that  they  could  do  themselves." 

"No,  it  ain't,"  he  says.  "They  Ve  got  to  be 
acted." 

He  said  an  actor  must  know  what  to  pick  out, 
and  so  he  was  studying  them  up  all  over;  and  I 
says  to  Stubbs  that  I  was  real  glad  that  he  was 
getting  something  that  maybe  folks  would  take  a 
notion  to  and  he  could  make  his  living  at  all  the 
time.  He  said  he  thought  he  could.  But  he  said 
it  was  all  a  gamble  and  you  can't  tell;  you  've  got 
to  take  your  chances.  People  is  hard  to  find  out. 


CHAPTER  XXV 


SAM  TAKES  HIMSELF  ASIDE 

FTER  we  had  dinner  there 
was  n't  nothing  to  do 
around  the  scow,  but 
the  Professor  would  n  't 
let  things  rest;  he 
stewed  around  as  if  he 
thought  things  ought 
to  go  on.  He  was 
preaching  about  hus 
tling  again.  And  see 
ing  there  was  n't  no 

hustling  to  do  and  we  was  n't  to  blame  for  it  he 
went  away  back  and  dug  up  a  lot  of  old  troubles 
and  used  them  over  again ;  he  was  like  Rags  and  a 
bone.  All  a  bone  is  good  for  to  Rags  is  just  exercise 
so  that  he  can  chaw  meat  when  he  gets  it. 

He  was  n't  jawing  us  but  he  might  as  well  'a' 
been;  he  was  using  us  for  it.  You  'd  'a'  thought 
that  if  it  was  n't  for  him  keeping  a  show  going 
nobody  could  make  a  living.  Well,  I  got  sick  of  it. 
I  decided  I  would  go  walking  again.  But  Stubbs 
could  n 't  go  this  time ;  he  was  busy  mending  his 
clown  clothes.  So  I  took  Rags  and  we  went  our 
selves. 


SAM  TAKES  HIMSELF  ASIDE  325 

When  I  went  a  piece  I  asked  a  fellow  about  the 
sights  and  he  said  I  was  on  the  road  to  a  grave 
yard.  I  says  to  myself,  "He  thinks  he  is  awful 
smart."  Well,  it  did  seem  like  I  was  always  get 
ting  headed  for  a  church  or  a  graveyard  or  some  of 
them  serious  places,  and  I  turned  to  go  back.  But 
the  fellow  said  he  was  n  't  making  fun ;  lots  of 
people  went  there  just  to  see  it.  Well,  that  did  n't 
make  no  difference  to  me;  some  folks  is  that  way. 
I  pretty  near  done  the  same  thing  in  Memphis 
where  the  fourteen  thousand  was,  only  I  found  out 
in  time.  But  the  fellow  said  pshaw,  that  grave 
yard  was  n 't  nothing  beside  theirs ;  they  had  pretty 
near  seventeen  thousand  in  theirs.  Memphis  did  n't 
come  up  to  them  by  more  than  two  thousand.  V/hy, 
he  said  there  was  more  in  this  place  than  there  was 
live  people  in  the  whole  city  of  Vicksburg.  I 
guessed  he  was  bragging  his  town  up  considerable, 
so  I  decided  I  would  go  and  look. 

What  he  said  was  so;  I  did  n't  count  them  but 
I  could  see  it.  Why,  there  was  over  twelve  thou 
sand  that  did  n 't  have  no  tombstones  of  their  own ; 
they  was  unknown.  They  did  n't  belong  to  nobody 
in  particular  but  just  belonged  to  everybody;  they 
was  soldiers.  If  I  had  known  that  I  would  'a' 
come  in  the  first  place.  There  was  other  folks 
walking  around  and  spending  Sunday  afternoon. 
After  a  while  I  come  to  an  old  lady  in  black  with  a 
young  lady  holding  her  arm;  and  she  was  saying 
it  seemed  to  her  like  her  boy  was  in  every  one  of 
them  graves.  Sometimes  there  ain't  anything  to 
tell  whether  it  is  a  man  or  a  woman  or  old  or 


326  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

young.  But  everybody  knows  anyway  what  they 
are  because  they  are  soldiers.  There  is  so  many 
you  never  could  count  them;  and  all  buried  in 
rank  and  file  like  they  was  soldiers  yet;  there  was 
just  companies  and  regiments  of  graves  and  it  was 
a  regular  dead  army.  When  I  found  out  how  it 
was  I  got  to  thinking  and  standing  there  where  it 
was  quiet  and  still  and  it  made  me  feel  awful  bad. 
I  added  up  all  the  ones  here  to  the  ones  in  Mem 
phis  and  they  come  to  more  than  thirty  thousand 
— just  in  them  two  places.  And  after  a  while  from 
counting  that  up  I  got  to  figuring  up  how  much 
my  wages  was  that  the  Professor  owed  me.  I  got 
so  far  I  did  n't  count  any  more;  it  was  too  much. 
Then  I  sat  down  on  a  grave  and  I  says  to  myself 
that  I  had  better  make  up  my  mind  about  myself. 
And  I  did.  I  says  to  myself,  "Look  a'  here,  Sam 
Daly,  this  ain  't  no  way  for  you  to  do.  The  show  is 
a  fraud;  it  ain't  a  respectable  business  that  you 
would  want  to  let  anybody  know  about,  and  you 
know  it.  You  just  drift  along  and  let  him  bully 
rag  and  borrow  as  if  you  did  n't  have  no  sense  or 
independence;  it  is  about  time  for  you  to  say  you 
are  going  to  do  something  and  then  do  it.  You 
get  good  wages  and  Rags  gets  more  than  most  dogs 
do,  but  the  Professor  borrows  them  all  back  again. 
And  you  have  to  lend  them  back  to  hold  your  job. 
It  will  always  be  that  way  till  you  quit,  and  then 
you  won't  get  them  because  he  don't  pay  anybody 
that  quits;  you  see  that  for  yourself.  If  you  had 
Clancy  to  help,  he  would  make  him  pay  or  fight ;  he 
would  take  it  out  of  his  hide.  But  he  ain't  here 


SAM  TAKES  HIMSELF  ASIDE  327 

and  this  ain't  no  way  to  find  him.  By  rights  you 
ought  to  do  it  yourself  but  you  ain't  big  enough. 
Anyways,  it  is  a  disrespectable  fraud  and  no 
good;  so  you  better  quit  this  business  that  has 
money  in  it  but  don't  pay." 

And  I  quit  right  there.  I  had  a  notion  to  go 
back  and  tell  him  \o  pay  up  the  money ;  it  was  mine 
by  rights.  But  I  guessed  I  better  not  because  I  had 
two  dollars  and  he  might  take  them  back.  The  best 
thing  for  me  was  to  lay  low  where  he  would  n't 
find  me.  This  was  the  best  place  to  stay  awhile ;  he 
would  n't  waste  his  time  in  such  a  place. 

Well,  I  did  n't  belong  to  the  scow  no  more  and 
so  I  did  n't  have  no  home;  I  felt  the  difference 
right  away.  The  difference  was  only  in  my  mind 
but  you  can't  help  it;  I  was  away  off  down  South 
where  I  did  n't  know  nobody  or  have  any  place  to 
go  into.  I  kept  walking  around  among  them  sol 
diers  that  did  n't  belong  to  nobody,  and  felt  kind 
of  lonesome.  But  after  a  while  I  come  across  some 
that  was  from  my  own  State  and  I  felt  more  at 
home;  so  I  guessed  that  was  where  I  would  stop 
awhile.  While  I  was  sitting  on  one  of  them  an  old 
man  come  along  walking  with  a  cane  and  when  he 
seen  me  and  Rags  he  stopped  and  asked  me  ques 
tions.  I  told  him  I  come  off  a  boat ;  and  that  was  n  't 
no  lie  even  if  I  did  n't  let  on  I  was  from  a  show. 
When  he  found  I  was  from  up  North  he  patted 
Rags  on  the  head  and  talked  a  little  and  told  me 
some  things  about  the  place  and  went  away.  I 
done  different  things  to  pass  the  time.  It  was  a 
good  place  to  play  mumblety-peg,  so  I  done  that; 


328  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

but  it  dulled  my  knife  all  up.  So  then  I  found  a 
good  stone  and  spit  on  it  and  sharpened  it  till  it 
would  cut  like  a  razor ;  and  that  passed  considerable 
time.  Between  times  I  would  go  and  take  a  walk 
among  the  others  and  keep  wondering  how  they 
was  killed.  Some  was  killed  making  charges  and 
some  was  killed  in  forts  and  some  died  in  trenches 
and  I  wished  I  knew  which  was  cavalry.  But  you 
could  n  't  tell  which ;  they  was  all  in  trenches  now. 
Trenches  is  just  like  digging  a  grave  and  getting 
down  into  it  and  shooting  till  they  hit  you;  and 
sometimes  there  ain't  anything  left  for  the  rest  to 
do  but  shovel  the  dirt  in  on  top  of  you.  Lots  of 
them  was  buried  that  way  for  a  while  and  all 
mixed  up ;  but  these  here  was  all  got  together  and 
buried  in  lines  like  they  was  always  going  to  be. 
"When  I  had  looked  around  some  more  I  would  get 
back  to  my  place  again;  and  Rags  got  so  that  he 
took  right  up  with  that  place.  When  I  would  turn 
back  he  would  run  ahead  and  sit  right  down  on 
that  grave;  he  is  smart  about  noticing  things  that 
way. 

Along  in  the  afternoon  when  I  had  took  a  long 
walk  and  got  back  again  I  was  pretty  tired,  so  I  sat 
down  and  staid  right  there.  And  I  got  to  thinking 
about  all  kinds  of  bad  luck,  'specially  Valdes  and 
his  wife.  I  wondered  where  he  had  been  going 
around  to  find  her  and  if  he  had  had  any  luck,  but 
I  guessed  he  had  n 't.  Most  likely  not.  Most  likely 
he  had  been  looking  for  me  and  wondering  where 
I  went,  too.  But  that  did  n 't  make  any  difference ; 
I  had  n't  found  out  anything  to  tell  him,  anyhow. 


SAM  TAKES  HIMSELF  ASIDE  329 

I  wished  I  had,  though,  because  I  liked  her,  least 
ways  I  felt  that  way  from  what  I  heard  of  her. 
And  it  was  a  shame  for  her  to  be  poor  when  she 
was  so  rich.  Well,  I  got  to  thinking  into  it.  And 
I  says  to  myself,  "Look  a 'here,  Sam  Daly,  you 
better  think  things  out  right  now ;  you  've  decided 
to  quit,  but  what  's  the  use  of  deciding  what  you 
ain't  going  to  do.  There  he  is  looking  for  her  and 
maybe  looking  for  you.  And  here  you  are  looking 
for  Clancy.  And  if  you  found  Clancy  and  Clancy  he 
found  her,  then  neither  of  us  would  know  where 
he  is.  The  way  things  are  now  we  are  all  un 
knowns.  The  only  person  you  have  kept  track  of 
is  yourself  and  Rags  and  here  you  are  hiding  away. 
What  you  want  to  do  is  to  go  back  on  the  Speed 
where  you  will  be  somewheres.  The  way  to  do 
that  is  to  go  right  straight  to  New  Orleans  where 
the  Woodland  comes,  and  the  captain  will  take  you 
back  to  St.  Louis  where  the  Speed  comes.  You 
want  to  stay  where  you  belong  and  then  him  and 
Clancy  will  both  know  where  you  are.  Maybe 
Clancy  will  come  some  day  to  see  Rags.  Then  you 
can  tell  him  and  maybe  he  will  find  her  and  tell 
you.  Then  Valdes  will  come  to  see  you  some  day 
and  you  can  tell  him ;  that  way  you  will  bring  them 
all  together.  It  all  depends  on  you  staying  where 
you  belong;  anyways,  you  won't  ever  find  any 
thing  by  hunting  for  it.  On  the  Speed  you  will 
be  taking  more  chances.  And  you  have  got  to  al 
ways  take  your  chances. ' ' 

Well,  that  looked  like  pretty  good  sense  to  me; 
so  I  took  that  advice.     The  only  thing  now  was  to 


330 


PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 


•The  sun  was  going  down  over  the  edge" 


keep  out  of  sight  of  the  Professor  awhile.  So  I  sat 
there  remembering  all  about  Valdes  and  his  wife 
and  thinking  how  things  goes. 

First  thing  I  knew  the  sun  was  going  down  over 
the  edge  and  it  was  getting  dusk.  I  bet  if  it  had 
been  a  regular  graveyard  I  would  'a'  cleared  out 
of  there  long  before ;  I  am  afraid  of  them  after  the 


SAM  TAKES  HIMSELF  ASIDE  331 

sun  goes  down.  But  I  sat  in  this  one  and  never 
thought  of  it ;  and  when  I  got  up  and  left  I  did  n  't 
hurry.  I  just  walked  down  between  the  rows  and 
did  n't  feel  scary  at  all.  Mostly  I  don't  trust  dead 
people  much;  it  ain't  natural.  But  soldiers  is  dif 
ferent.  I  guess  it  is  because  they  did  n't  die  and 
have  no  funeral  at  all  but  was  just  killed  fighting. 
Anyways,  you  know  they  ain't  that  kind. 

When  I  got  back  to  town  it  was  good  and  dark, 
so  now  there  was  n't  any  risk  of  the  Professor  see 
ing  me  and  I  could  go  right  down  to  the  river. 
There  was  a  New  Orleans  packet  right  at  the  levee, 
and  most  ready  to  go.  I  thought  awhile  what  to 
tell  the  captain  and  the  only  good  thing  I  could 
make  up  was  the  truth.  I  made  it  up  that  I  would 
tell  him  first  about  me  being  a  steamboater;  and 
when  he  got  that  in  his  head  right,  I  would  explain 
how  I  come  to  be  a  Human  Dictionary  with  a 
show.  I  would  n 't  'a '  let  out  about  the  show  at  all 
but  I  seen  I  had  to  so  things  would  hang  together. 
He  listened  and  let  me  tell  it  all  through,  then  he 
looked  us  over  and  laughed. 

"Well,"  he  says,  "it  's  usually  the  other  way. 
This  is  the  first  time  I  ever  saw  a  boy  running  away 
from  a  show.  If  that  's  what  you  are  doing  I  '11 
put  you  pretty  far  away  from  it  by  morning. ' ' 

I  did  n't  figure  on  him  looking  at  it  that  way  at 
all;  I  was  afraid  it  would  work  different.  But 
I  've  found,  anyway,  that  as  long  as  you  ain't 
gone  and  done  nothing  you  don't  need  to  lie— not 
if  you  give  the  truth  the  right  kind  of  a  show. 
And,  besides,  when  you  get  a  lie  on  your  hands 


332  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

you  've  got  to  take  care  of  it,  and  it  gets  to  be 
more  trouble  than  you  thought  it  was  going  to  be 
when  it  was  little.  I  could  n't  'a'  fixed  the  truth 
up  better  if  I  'd  V  known  beforehand  how  it  was 
going  to  work. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 


NOTHING  TO  DO  BUT  THINK 

1  seemed  mighty  good  to  be  on  a  steam 
boat  again  after  drifting  so 
long.  And  when  the  engines 
1  started  to  breathe  and  she 
struck  right  out  for  wherever 
she  wanted  to  go  it  felt  almost 
like  something  new  to  be  on  a 
live  boat.  She  did  n  't  churn  up 
behind  like  the  big  tow-boat; 
she  was  a  swift  side-wheeler 
with  nothing  but  herself  and 
she  could  make  time;  she 

seemed  to  be  right  on  the  surface  of  the  water,  run 
ning  on  her  two  big  wheels.  I  sat  and  listened  to 
her  pipes  till  I  would  'a'  knowed  them  if  I  heard 
them  coming,  and  then  I  rolled  in  and  the  engines 
put  me  to  sleep. 

Sometime  in  the  dark  there  was  a  noise  that 
gradually  woke  me  up.  When  I  got  on  my  things 
and  went  out  we  was  just  pulling  away  from  Nat 
chez.  It  is  on  a  hill,  too,  and  that  is  all  I  knew 
about  it.  That  was  over  a  hundred  miles  we  had 
gone ;  it  made  me  think  of  the  show-towns  between, 


334  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

and  all  we  had  skipped.  Then  I  got  into  my  bunk 
again  and  the  pipes  snored  me  to  sleep. 

Next  morning  when  I  was  acquainted  with  every 
body  I  sat  up  in  the  pilot-house  and  watched  the 
channel  and  learned  a  lot.  The  old  flat  was  in  my 
head  yet  and  the  slow  way  of  going.  When  I  first 
learned  about  old  times  and  keel-boat  men  I  wished 
I  had  lived  then ;  but  now  I  had  had  enough  of  scows. 
But  some  wrays  I  had  learned  a  lot  on  the  scow,  if 
it  had  only  been  any  good.  I  got  to  thinking  about 
the  keel-boat  men  and  how  Mary  McKay  said  they 
run  their  boats,  and  it  did  n't  look  reasonable  to 
me;  and  after  a  while  I  seen  it  was  n't  true  at  all. 
I  had  seen  too  much  of  the  river  for  that.  First 
place,  if  fourteen  or  twenty  men  was  pushing  a 
boat  up-stream  with  their  poles  and  they  all  went 
to  the  bows  and  turned  their  backs  and  set  their 
poles  on  bottom  and  walked  her  up-stream  till  they 
was  at  the  stern,  they  would  put  her  ahead  all 
right ;  anybody  can  see  that.  But  when  they  got 
to  the  stern  and  lifted  their  poles  and  marched 
forward  to  do  it  again,  what  would  happen  ?  Why, 
a  river  like  the  Mississippi  would  stop  her  on  the 
spot;  and  by  the  time  they  got  to  the  bows  again 
she  would  be  drifted  back  as  far  as  they  had  shoved 
her  ahead— maybe  farther.  Them  men  could  n't 
give  a  big  boat  enough  headway  to  buck  the  Mis 
sissippi  between  times;  they  would  n't  ever  get 
nowhere ;  I  don't  care  who  says  so.  I  toJd  the  pilot 
all  about  it  to  see  what  he  would  have  to  say. 

"It  's  true  as  far  as  it  goes, ' '  he  says.  ' ' But  you 
see  the  men  on  each  side  of  the  boat  worked  in 


NOTHING  TO  DO  BUT  THINK  335 

turn.  One  side  was  setting  their  poles  and  start 
ing  back  just  as  the  others  had  got  to  the  stern  and 
was  coming  forward  dragging  their  poles  behind 
them  on  the  water. ' ' 

Well,  that  was  more  sensible;  I  seen  right  off 
they  knew  their  trade  and  they  figured  it  out  all 
right.  The  pilot  said  I  was  right  to  not  believe  it. 

"That  's  right;  keep  your  doubts  about  you," 
he  said.  And  he  said  that  this  thing  of  taking  half 
a  thing  on  trust  and  swallowing  it  for  the  whole 
was  n't  no  better  than  believing  a  lie;  it  was  n't 
learning  at  all.  Mary  McKay  had  n't  gone  to  the 
bottom,  like  as  if  she  had  learned  a  trade.  But  she 
was  mighty  smart  at  what  come  natural  to  her. 
That  's  the  way  with  women;  they  just  believe 
things. 

Them  days  you  had  to  pay  seven  or  eight  times 
as  much  to  ride  on  a  keel-boat  as  you  would  now 
on  a  fine  steamboat  like  the  Natchez.  Why,  the 
pilot  told  me  you  had  to  pay  a  hundred  and  sixty 
dollars  to  the  keel-boat  people  to  get  aboard  with 
the  rest  of  the  freight  and  have  them  pole  you  up 
to  Ohio,  or  some  place;  and  it  took  five  months  of 
your  time.  But  I  guess  it  was  worth  it  with  keel-boat 
men  that  you  could  depend  on;  there  was  pirates 
on  them  islands  out  in  the  river  and  it  was  all  wild 
with  Indians  around.  Them  pirates  must  'a'  had 
it  easy  with  thousands  of  dollars'  worth  of  stuff 
going  up  and  down;  what  would  anybody  want  to 
be  an  ocean  pirate  for?  Ocean  pirates  has  to  be 
out  in  storms  and  go  after  things,  but  a  river  pirate 
can  just  sit  there  and  everything  has  got  to  come 


336  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

his  way.  It  would  n't  V  been  hard  at  all  if  it 
was  n't  for  them  keel-boat  men  being  such  hard 
customers  with  their  rifles.  No  wonder  they  kept 
the  English  out  of  New  Orleans;  it  was  just  like 
going  to  work  and  doing  a  job  at  their  trade. 

You  'd  wonder  that  such  rough  men  would  pro 
tect  everybody  and  their  property  and  fight  for 
them,  besides  doing  the  work ;  and  I  asked  the  pilot 
if  they  was  all  such  square  f ellows.  He  said  l  i  yes, ' ' 
taking  them  altogether  they  was ;  they  was  a  pretty 
tough  lot  some  ways,  but  you  could  trust  them. 
But  he  said  you  can't  just  swallow  that  whole, 
either;  sometimes  it  looked  as  if  some  of  them  was 
in  partners  with  the  pirates.  Or  maybe  it  was  the 
pirates  that  sometimes  went  and  got  a  job;  that 
would  be  a  smart  way.  Then  when  you  paid  your 
hundred  and  sixty  dollars  and  went  traveling  you 
better  watch  out.  I  guess  it  would  'a'  been  lots  of 
fun  to  live  back  in  them  times  for  a  while.  But 
taking  it  for  all  the  time  I  would  rather  have  steam 
boats. 

While  we  was  talking  them  things  over,  the  pilot 
told  me  to  shut  up  and  he  put  the  wheel  over  a 
couple  of  whirls  and  the  whistle  blew  for  Baton 
Rouge.  The  first  thing  I  seen  was  a  castle  away  up 
high  where  the  green  bluffs  show  off  above  the 
river.  I  found  out  they  used  it  for  the  capitol,  but 
I  knew  it  was  a  castle  right  away;  it  had  square 
scollops  all  along  the  tops  of  the  walls.  I  found 
we  was  going  to  lay  there  a  little  while  and  so  I 
could  go  up  and  see  it;  I  had  n't  never  seen  a  real 
castle  before.  The  capitol  at  Jefferson  City  in  Mis- 


NOTHING  TO  DO  BUT  THINK  337 

souri  is  stone,  too,  and  it  has  a  dome,  but  this  had 
a  flat  top ;  that  's  the  way  a  castle  has  got  to  be,  so 
the  men  can  go  up  on  top  and  shoot  from  them  bat 
tlements.  While  I  was  going  up  a  road  where  the 
front  yards  sloped  down  to  it,  I  come  to  the  Gov 
ernor's  house.  It  was  a  little  cottage  like  the  rest, 
with  a  steep  little  yard  that  was  just  a  bank  of 
roses  and  vines  and  other  flowers,  and  mighty 
pretty  if  you  like  them.  The  Governor  come  out  of 
the  house  and  I  seen  him  go  up  the  street ;  he  was 
just  an  ordinary  man  with  a  pretty  good  suit  of 
clothes.  But  they  was  n't  nothing  extra.  When  I 
got  farther  along  I  stopped  where  it  was  open  and 
give  the  town  a  look ;  away  off  behind  it  you  could 
see  lots  of  green  woods  and  grass  open  between. 
Not  far  from  the  castle,  where  there  was  plenty  of 
open  between  the  houses  for  everybody,  I  seen  a  big 
brick  baker 's  oven  that  was  built  round  like  a  little 
hay-stack,  and  I  wondered  whether  he  ever  baked 
real  bread  in  it.  I  had  n  't  had  anything  but  biscuit 
for  ever  so  long ;  they  have  heard  tell  of  cold  bread 
down  there  but  never  tried  it.  It  made  me  hungry 
again  for  a  piece  of  bread  and  butter,  with  maybe 
molasses  on  it.  I  guess  he  done  the  baking  for  all 
of  them  there  where  it  was  out  of  doors  and 
would  n 't  heat  things  up ;  it  is  all  more  outdoorsy 
down  South.  But  I  hurried  on  because  I  wanted 
mainly  to  see  a  castle. 

When  I  got  closer  it  did  n 't  seem  so  strong ;  so  I 
went  and  rapped  on  the  pillars  to  find  if  they  was 
hollow.  And  then  I  thumped  it  all  over  like  a 
watermelon  to  see  if  it  was  a  real  castle.  It  was 

22 


338  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

pretty  good,  but  I  guess  you  could  'a'  got  the  best 
of  it  with  a  set  of  tools.  I  have  seen  castles  that 
you  could  'a'  put  a  hull  on  and  used  for  a  steam 
boat—so  you  have  got  to  watch  out  that  you  ain't 
fooled.  This  would  do  all  right— you  could  ima 
gine  it  was  a  castle  pretty  good.  So  I  took  out  my 
jack-knife  and  whittled  a  splinter  where  it  was 
wood  and  kept  it;  and  while  I  was  doing  it  the 
whistle  blew  and  I  had  to  clear  out  and  make 
tracks  to  the  boat  again.  And  while  I  was  a-going 
I  grabbed  one  of  the  Governor's  roses  that  had  its 
head  stuck  out  between  the  palings  and  I  got  back 
just  as  the  staging  was  ready  to  swing  up.  Then 
I  stood  watching  it  getting  smaller  and  smaller  and 
would  'a'  most  thought  it  was  n't  real  again  if  I 
was  n't  picking  my  teeth  with  a  piece  of  it.  And 
I  give  the  rose  to  a  lady  that  thought  it  was  some 
thing  fine. 

Well,  the  rest  of  that  day  we  was  certainly  down 
South ;  before  it  was  the  cotton  and  now  it  was  the 
cane.  That  country  ain't  monotonous  like  they 
say,  at  all;  it  is  just  easy  to  enjoy.  The  scenery 
don't  half  try,  but  you  like  it  anyway,  and  you 
feel  satisfied  and  think  it  is  good  enough  for  you. 
I  seen  low  places  with  swamps  in  them,  and  the 
careless-looking  woods  with  the  gray  moss  hanging 
on  them  all  tattered  and  torn,  and  the  sugar  planta 
tions  getting  so  big  and  prosperous  that  you  'd 
know  New  Orleans  was  somewheres  around,  and 
every  once  in  a  while  something  pretty  would  come 
between,  'specially  a  white  house  that  looked  like 
home— with  the  green  bushes  in  front  with  oranges 


NOTHING  TO  DO  BUT  THINK  339 

like  gold  balls  stuck  all  over.  Then  there  would  be 
a  big  brick  factory  chimney  right  in  the  fields 
where  they  burned  cane  when  they  had  squeezed 
the  sugar  juice  out  of  it,  and  sometimes  there 


"One  of  the  Governor's  roses'1 


would  be  the  big  live-oaks  planted  all  along  the 
banks  and  far  enough  apart  for  such  big  things  to 
have  room  and  be  regular.  I  guess  the  prettiest 
thing  of  all  was  the  big,  dark,  live-oak  trees ;  some 
of  them  plantations  had  them  planted  for  miles 


340  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

along  the  bank  like  shade  trees,  till  you  'd  think  the 
Mississippi  was  just  a  steamboat  street.  And  it 
must  'a'  took  years  and  years  for  them  to  grow  so 
big.  And  they  are  stationed  along  like  big  giants 
standing  guard  over  that  river  that  needs  so  much 
watching.  I  just  sat  on  the  hurricane-deck  with 
my  back  against  the  texas  and  let  it  pass  by ;  and 
the  sun  was  warming  me  up  just  about  right,  like 
bed-clothes  all  over.  Well,  it  was  like  sitting  up  in 
bed  with  nothing  to  do ;  you  feel  just  that  way. 
And  once  I  seen  them  putting  the  rip-rap  along 
the  sloping  shore  like  they  was  weaving  a  basket 
to  hold  the  Mississippi  in. 

The  signs  of  New  Orleans  kept  getting  stronger. 
After  a  while  the  ships  started  in.  When  I  seen 
that  I  stood  up  and  thinks  to  myself,  "Here  we 
are."  But  when  I  had  stood  and  watched  them  so 
long  that  I  was  tired  I  sat  down  again.  After  we 
had  traveled  past  ships  so  long  that  I  thought  we 
must  be  there  half  a  dozen  times  I  begun  to  open 
my  eyes  and  wonder  if  there  was  n't  ever  no  end  to 
it.  It  seemed  there  was  miles  and  miles  of  them. 
After  a  while  I  did  n't  bother  to  notice  separate 
ships  at  all ;  they  was  like  cattle.  And  we  was  n  't 
near  there  yet.  By  the  time  I  got  to  New  Orleans  I 
was  pretty  near  used  to  living  there. 

We  got  to  the  stopping  place  that  evening  at  the 
foot  of  Canal  Street,  and  then  we  was  only  to  the 
middle  of  the  ships  that  was  tied  there.  And  Canal 
was  all  lit  up.  It  was  a  big  street  of  double  width 
with  a  piece  that  was  n 't  street  at  all  in  the  middle.  I 
went  just  a  little  piece  up  it  till  I  come  to  Henry 


NOTHING  TO  DO  BUT  THINK  341 

Clay  standing  in  the  middle  of  it  on  his  monument 
and  looking  down  the  street  and  out  of  the  end  of 
it  like  he  was  discovering  the  Mississippi.  But  he 
was  n't  the  man  that  done  that;  he  done  something 
else;  he  was  a  Southern  general  or  something,  I 
guess.  But  I  can't  tell  so  much  from  Vicksburg 
down ;  I  had  been  going  by  steam. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

SAM  HAS  AN  ATTACK  OF  EXPLANATION 

'ELL,  I  went  and  made  a 
fool  of  myself  in  New 
Orleans.  Afterwards  I 
seen  it.  First  mistake 
I  made  was  to  spend  so 
much  money  for  every 
thing;  I  ought  to  'a' 
been  more  careful  with 
that  sixty  cents  and 
it  would  V  seen  me 
through.  But  when  a 

fellow  has  plenty  of  money  he  don 't  think  of  them 
things. 

You  see,  after  the  packet  put  me  off  at  New  Or 
leans  I  spent  a  day  walking  up  and  down  and 
learning  all  about  ships;  I  did  n't  bother  much 
about  the  city,  it  was  just  houses.  There  is  some 
thing  about  ships;  I  don't  know  what  it  is,  but  I 
guess  it  is  the  foreign  countries;  and  the  more  I 
mixed  up  with  them  sailors  I  seen  steamboating 
was  n't  nothing.  Them  sailors  call  the  river  boats 
just  mud-turkles.  I  come  across  an  old  fellow  with 
ear-rings  in  his  ears  that  talked  to  me  like  I  was  a 
sailor,  too,  and  knew  about  dozens  of  countries ;  he 

342 


SAM  HAS  AN  ATTACK  OF  EXPLANATION  343 

come  from  a  country  that  I  never  heard  of,  but  he 
could  talk  English,  and  he  was  on  the  ship  with  a 
Norwegian  and  a  Frenchman  and  a  Portuguese  and 
she  was  an  American  ship  called  the  Rover  that 
was  loading  with  cotton  for  Havre.  The  countries 
was  all  mixed  up  and  it  did  n  't  make  any  difference 
to  them.  And  pretty  soon  I  got  to  seeing  that  the 
United  States  was  just  a  foreign  country,  too,  and 
only  a  stopping  place.  I  found  I  could  get  a  job 
on  that  ship  where  I  was  acquainted  with  the 
sailors  and  right  away  I  seen  the  thing  for  me  to  do 
was  to  be  a  sailor  and  leave  this  country  behind 
and  go  to  Havre.  I  took  the  job  and  every  day  I 
learned  things.  Pretty  soon  I  found  that  Havre 
was  in  France ;  but  that  did  n't  make  no  difference 
—I  would  just  as  leave  it  would  be  there.  But  I 
found  that  she  was  n't  going  to  sail  for  maybe 
three  weeks  yet,  and  that  seemed  a  long  time.  After 
I  had  went  on  the  ship  I  kind  of  give  up  this  coun 
try  for  a  while,  anyways,  and  I  did  n't  like  to  be 
laying  alongside  of  the  United  States  like  that. 
When  I  found  it  out  I  tried  to  get  a  job  on  a  ship 
that  was  going  to  England  right  away  but  they 
would  n't  have  me.  So  I  staid  on  that  one.  I  got 
along  pretty  well  for  most  of  the  three  weeks  and 
the  time  was  getting  near. 

But  one  evening  the  steward  come  into  the  galley 
looking  pretty  mad ;  I  could  see  him  glowering  out 
of  his  eyes.  And  just  as  I  was  going  to  say  some 
thing  he  grabbed  me  and  backed  me  out  over  the 
high  sill  of  the  galley— which  I  forgot  to  step  over 
and  fell  down— and  he  jerked  me  up  again  and 


344  PARTNERS  OF  PEOVIDENCE 

backed  me  down  the  waist  and  drew  his  foot  back 
and  says,  "Get  off  of  here,  you  river  rat."  And 
the  next  I  knew  I  sailed  down  the  gangway  of  the 
brig  Rover  and  landed  in  the  United  States  again. 
When  I  picked  myself  up  I  seen  his  yellow  freckled 
face  a-f rowning  at  me  over  the  side  of  the  ship  and 
then  he  cussed  me  and  told  me  what  I  had  done. 
What  I  had  done,  I  had  stirred  the  captain's  fried 
potatoes  with  a  fork  and  mixed  them  up ;  and  I 
should  'a'  turned  them  over  and  not  broke  up  the 
slices.  And  the  captain  he  had  spoke  of  it.  How 
did  I  know  that  the  captain  cared;  it  don't  make 
no  difference  in  the  taste.  But  I  did  n't  say  noth 
ing  back  because  the  place  was  hurting  where  he 
kicked.  I  limped  away  and  sat  down  behind  a 
cotton  bale  and  felt  the  sore  place  on  my  leg.  And 
next,  Rags,  which  had  been  laying  in  the  forecastle, 
come  sailing  after  me. 

The  worst  of  it  was  that  I  lost  my  job  just  at  the 
worst  time.  The  best  time  to  lose  a  job  is  in  the 
morning;  then  you  can  maybe  get  another  in  time 
to  have  a  place  to  sleep.  It  was  all  quiet  on  the 
levee.  All  the  hundreds  of  niggers  and  bosses  had 
gone  away  and  left  the  rows  of  molasses  barrels  and 
the  bales  of  cotton,  which  I  guess  there  was  thou 
sands  of  them. 

There  was  n't  nothing  but  the  lights  of  the  ships 
all  along  and  sometimes  the  rap  of  a  policeman's 
club.  And  the  different  lots  of  cotton  had  the  tar 
paulins  thrown  over  them  like  they  had  all  been  put 
to  bed  for  the  night.  In  day  they  was  all  white, 
but  now  they  had  the  dark  covers  on  them  as  far 


"I  seen  his  yellow  freckled  face 


345 


346  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

as  you  could  see;  it  don't  do  to  let  rain  get  on  the 
cotton.  I  guess  the  canvas  in  all  them  tarpaulins 
would  'a'  made  dozens  of  circus  tents. 

I  guessed  I  would  have  to  do  like  I  seen  another 
fellow  do ;  so  I  sat  there  just  like  I  belonged  to  the 
ship  yet,  and  after  a  while  I  ducked  under  the  tar 
paulin  and  went  to  bed  while  a  policeman  was  n't 
looking.  Rags  come  right  along  and  when  I  had 
got  fixed  with  my  sore  place  up  he  snuggled  in 
close  and  it  was  first  class,  as  good  as  anybody 
would  want.  Cotton  is  good  to  sleep  on  and  the 
tarpaulin  covers  you  up. 

It  is  against  the  law  to  sleep  in  under  the  tar 
paulins  that  way,  'specially  if  you  light  a  pipe  and 
.smoke  yourself  to  sleep.  Cotton  burns  mighty 
lively  and  the  policeman  has  got  to  watch  out.  I 
did  n't  smoke  none,  but  they  don't  stop  to  ask 
whether  you  do  or  not;  it  is  against  the  law  any 
ways.  That  made  it  seem  better  to  sleep  there 
after  you  got  in.  Outside  it  was  dangerous  and  in 
side  it  was  private  and  safe ;  so  I  just  settled  down 
and  took  it  comfortable.  And,  anyways,  it  seemed 
mighty  homelike  to  be  sleeping  under  canvas  where 
it  was  all  mine. 

I  felt  like  I  was  in  pretty  good  luck;  and  now 
there  was  n't  anything  to  do  but  lay  in  the  dark 
and  think.  And  when  I  had  my  mind  all  made  up 
I  would  go  to  sleep. 

I  thought  it  over  awhile  and  then  I  says  to  my 
self,  "Look  a'  here,  Sam  Daly,  this  is  what  comes 
from  changing  your  mind.  You  did  n't  stick  to 
what  you  thought  up  sensible  and  said  you  was 


SAM  HAS  AN  ATTACK  OF  EXPLANATION     347 

going  to,  and  here  you  are  with  a  sore  leg.  This 
is  what  you  get  for  disobeying  the  laws  that  you 
made  up  for  yourself.  Elkins  says  that  when  you 
make  a  law  for  yourself  you  don't  want  to  repeal 
it;  here  you  said  you  was  going  back  to  St.  Louis 
and  help  Valdes  and  you  did  n  't  do  it.  It  is  maybe 
all  right  to  bust  laws  that  other  folks  make,  'spe 
cially  if  you  have  to  and  it  don't  hurt  and  you 
don't  get  caught;  but  there  ain't  no  use  in  you 
making  up  sensible  laws  if  you  don't  live  up  to 
them.  There  ain't  no  use  in  you  making  a  rule 
and  only  using  it  part  of  the  time ;  it  ain't  no  good 
after  it  is  busted.  So  now  you  better  start  over 
and  go  ahead  till  you  get  to  St.  Louis  like  you  said 
in  the  first  place." 

That  settled  that.  Then  there  was  n't  anything 
for  me  to  do  but  go  back  in  my  mind  and  think  up 
to  the  place  where  I  was;  then  I  guessed  I  could 
go  to  sleep. 

Some  ways  I  wished  the  mate  had  got  me;  him 
and  the  cook  both  claimed  me  at  first,  but  when 
they  argued  about  it  the  cook  came  out  on  top. 
Then  I  had  to  haul  up  water  for  both  of  them.  The 
bucket  was  a  canvas  bag  with  tarred  rope  around 
the  mouth  to  hold  it  open ;  everybody  makes  things 
according  to  their  own  trade.  And,  anyway,  I 
guess  a  wooden  bucket  would  get  busted  in  storms. 
The  rope  of  it  was  awful  long  and  heavy  because 
the  hull  of  the  boat  stood  up  a  couple  of  stories  out 
of  the  water.  I  would  have  to  let  it  away  down 
into  the  river  like  getting  water  out  of  a  well  and 
it  made  me  tireder  than  I  could  stand ;  sometimes  I 


348  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

wished  I  was  a  windlass.  But  they  was  jackscrew- 
ing  the  cotton  into  her  hold  so  tight  you  'd  think 
she  would  bust  and  that  made  her  go  down  a  little 
every  day  and  it  was  n't  quite  so  far.  And  just  as 
I  was  getting  tougher  and  was  feeling  used  to  it  the 
work  was  getting  easier  and  was  most  done.  That  's 
the  way  things  goes. 

The  first  thing  when  I  went  on  I  seen  I  would 
have  to  learn  every  knife  and  fork  and  spoon  in 
each  of  their  leather  straps  against  the  bulkhead; 
so  I  started  right  in  and  studied  hard.  After  a 
while  I  got  so  I  could  reach  out  in  the  dark  and  find 
any  one  of  them.  I  guessed  I  would  be  good  at  my 
job.  Everything  was  in  leather  straps  that  way 
because  you  see  they  can't  just  drive  a  nail  and 
hang  a  thing  up  anywheres  on  an  ocean  boat.  A 
storm  would  jiggle  the  whole  business  off  and  they 
would  go  chasing  around  under  your  feet.  It 
looked  funny  to  see  the  two  cables  stretched  out 
from  the  stove  and  fastened  to  rings  in  the  floor; 
it  was  the  first  time  I  ever  knew  a  ship  had  rig 
ging  on  the  stove.  The  whole  kitchen,  which  is  the 
galley,  was  n't  no  bigger  than  the  Woodland's  ice 
box  where  they  kept  the  legs  of  beef  and  things ; 
everything  on  a  ship  has  to  be  snug  and  tight  and 
fastened  in  its  own  place.  I  guess  you  could  'a' 
turned  the  Rover  upside  down  and  there  would  n't 
'a'  been  a  jingle  in  the  galley.  I  would  like  to  see 
someone  turn  a  river  boat  upside  down;  I  bet  she 
would  spill  all  over. 

One  of  the  crew  told  me  that  last  trip  one  of  the 
sailors  was  washed  clean  off  the  end  of  the  yard- 
arm,  I  seen  for  myself  that  she  must  jump  around 


SAM  HAS  AN  ATTACK  OF  EXPLANATION  349 

considerable ;  but  when  I  looked  away  up  and  then 
away  down  I  guessed  I  would  hold  off  on  believing 
that  for  a  while;  it  did  n't  look  likely.  But  after 
a  while  I  stumbled  right  into  the  truth  and  knew  it 
for  myself;  and  it  was  like  this.  It  looked  to  me 
like  it  was  foolishness  to  have  a  high  door-sill  that 
you  have  to  think  to  step  over  every  time  you  go 
out  of  the  galley  and  maybe  forget  it.  I  made  up 
my  mind  that  it  was  a  fool  notion,  so  I  went  and 
spoke  to  the  ship's  carpenter  about  it.  What  he 
told  me  was  that  when  we  was  out  to  sea,  and  the 
waves  was  high,  and  the  ship  keeling,  she  sometimes 
went  over  so  far  that  the  water  was  chasing  right 
along  the  deck.  The  sill  was  to  keep  the  ocean  from 
coming  into  the  kitchen  and  getting  our  feet  wet. 
After  that  I  looked  up  again  and  tried  to  figure  out 
whether  that  yard-arm  could  ever  take  a  dip ;  I 
could  n't  hardly  believe  it,  but  it  was  true  accord 
ing  to  the  sill.  I  guess  nobody  would  make  a  sill 
like  that  for  nothing  and  so  I  believed  it.  The  more 
I  looked  into  things  the  more  I  seen  they  was  n't 
just  fashions  at  all,  but  everything  was  for  some 
thing.  It  is  awful  hard  to  make  improvements  on 
a  ship ;  I  guess  there  is  ten  thousand  reasons  in  one. 
I  laid  under  the  tarpaulin  thinking  them  things 
over  and  every  once  in  a  while  I  would  think  of 
what  the  cook  called  me  and  how  he  said  it.  He 
called  me  "you  river  rat "  as  if  it  was  some  disgrace, 
and  that  is  what  stuck  in  my  craw.  And  I  had  told 
him  good  and  plain  that  when  I  was  on  a  river  boat 
I  was  going  to  be  a  pilot.  But  he  did  n't  under 
stand,  I  guess;  he  called  it  a  wheelsman  job  and 
did  n't  seem  to  think  it  was  nothing.  That  's  be- 


350  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

cause  a  wheelsman  on  a  ship  ain  't  nothing ;  and  so 
he  did  n't  understand.  A  wheelsman  on  a  ship 
gets  about  five  dollars  a  week,  and  on  a  river  boat 
you  get  maybe  forty ;  that  's  one  difference.  A  pilot 
on  a  river  boat  ain't  a  wheelsman  any  more  than 
an  ocean  pilot  is  a  wheelsman;  it  don't  make  any 
difference  if  he  does  hold  the  wheel.  You  see  a 
wheelsman  on  a  ship  just  minds  the  compass  till 
they  get  near  to  land ;  but  they  don 't  dast  to  run  in 
till  an  ocean  pilot  comes  out  in  his  private  boat  to 
meet  them.  The  ocean  pilot  climbs  up  over  the 
side  and  tells  the  captain  to  take  a  back  seat  and 
puts  the  wheelsman  to  one  side  and  takes  hold  him 
self.  That  's  what  an  ocean  pilot  is.  They  have 
got  to  have  somebody  that  knows  when  they  are 
fooling  around  where  it  is  shallow.  Well,  on  a 
river  boat  the  wheelsman  is  a  pilot  ALL  the  time. 
That  is  what  a  river  pilot  is.  And  the  captain 
don't  ever  say  nothing. 

On  a  river  boat  the  wheel  is  so  big  that  the  hub 
is  most  on  the  floor,  and  there  is  a  slit  in  the  floor 
for  the  wheel  to  go  down  through.  The  pilot 
knows  it  all  for  maybe  twelve  hundred  miles  and 
does  his  thinking  right  out  of  his  own  head.  But 
on  a  ship  the  wheel  is  a  little  thing  up  at  your 
chest  and  all  you  have  to  do  is  to  watch  the  hand 
of  a  compass  and  keep  it  pointing  where  the  cap 
tain  told  you  beforehand.  It  is  as  easy  as  going  by 
a  clock  and  one  of  them  would  n't  work  on  the 
Mississippi.  The  captain  says  to  keep  her  on  half 
past  twelve  and  you  just  stand  there  and  do  it. 
Beside  that  there  ain't  a  sand  bar  within  a  mile  of 
the  surface.  What  is  there  hard  about  that?  At 


SAM  HAS  AN  ATTACK  OF  EXPLANATION      351 

first  I  thought  I  would  be  a  wheelsman  that  guides 
ships  across  the  ocean ;  but  when  I  found  out  about 
it  I  changed  my  mind.  But  that  cook  had  wheels 
men  and  river  pilots  all  mixed  up.  I  wished  I 
had  'a'  told  him  that  a  river  wheelsman  gets  more 
than  his  old  captain ;  I  guess  that  would  'a '  rubbed 
it  into  him.  But  I  did  n't  think  of  it. 

Ocean  captains  is  different,  too.  A  steamboat 
captain  is  used  to  going  up  and  down  between  the 
scenery,  and  meeting  lots  of  travelers  when  they  are 
all  cheerful  about  going  to  see  their  folks.  And  they 
act  sociable  with  him  till  he  feels  like  the  chief 
traveler  himself;  everything  is  his  friends.  But 
look  at  a  sail-boat  captain  and  how  he  gets.  He  is 
being  knocked  around  out  on  the  lonesome  ocean 
where  all  the  weather  is;  and  it  is  always  laying 
for  him  and  watching  for  another  chance  to  do 
him  up ;  everything  is  his  enemies.  And  when 
there  ain't  trouble  between  times  he  is  ready  for  it 
anyway.  He  don't  mix  up  common  with  the  crew 
but  figures  his  arithmetic  down  in  the  cabin,  and 
only  has  doings  with  the  sun  and  stars ;  and  when 
he  is  up  on  deck  he  is  just  boss.  Some  ways  he  is 
more  alone  than  if  there  was  n't  anybody  else  on 
the  ship  but  him ;  I  could  see  that  plain  right  there 
in  port.  When  a  storm  is  getting  itself  ready  he 
has  got  to  see  it  first,  and  then  he  has  got  to  sail  in 
and  get  the  best  of  the  ocean  and  get  the  best  of  his 
men— which  is  all  there  is  to  get  the  best  of;  and 
that  way  he  gets  to  be  on  the  other  side  of  every 
thing. 

Look  at  that  captain  and  how  he  was.  He  lived 
under  deck  towards  the  stern  and  down  some  stairs 


You'd  think  we  was  feeding  wild  animals" 
352 


SAM  HAS  AN  ATTACK  OF  EXPLANATION  353 
that  is  called  the  companionway.  That  is  the  little 
cabin  down  in  the  hull  of  the  brig ;  and  in  a  storm 
it  is  safest  down  there  with  the  lid  on.  But  the 
galley  where  we  done  the  cooking  was  a  little 
house  built  on  deck  near  the  middle;  the  waves 
could  'a '  washed  it  off  and  not  sunk  the  boat  at  all. 
Well,  when  the  cook  was  getting  dinner  he  would 
be  whistling  a  sea-tune  to  himself;  but  when  it 
was  ready  and  he  got  the  dishes  all  loaded  on  his 
long  arm  he  would  get  stern  and  solemn  and  march 
down  the  deck  and  down  into  the  cabin  to  feed 
the  captain.  He  would  stay  down  there  and  wait 
on  him  and  I  would  have  to  bring  the  next  thing 
to  the  head  of  the  stairs  just  at  the  right  time.  The 
cook  would  come  up  and  stick  his  head  out  and 
whisper  to  me  what  to  bring  next  and  I  would 
whisper  back.  You  'd  think  we  was  feeding  wild 
animals  down  in  their  den. 

Well,  after  I  found  that  on  a  ship  the  captain  is 
more  important  than  a  wheelsman  and  it  is  just  the 
other  way  from  a  steamboat,  I  seen  the  thing  to 
learn  to  be  was  a  captain.  And  when  I  found  what 
captains  was  like  I  changed  my  mind  about  that, 
too.  I  would  rather  sit  in  the  rigging  or  mix  up 
in  the  forecastle  and  spin  yarns.  The  only  good 
thing  .to  be  is  a  sailor.  Some  ways  I  was  sorry 
them  fried  potatoes  did  n't  hold  off  till  we  was  out 
at  sea;  then  they  could  n't  'a'  put  me  off.  But  here 
I  was  and  there  could  n  't  be  nothing  done  about  it. 
So  I  fixed  myself  an  easy  way  to  sleep  and  put  my 
hand  on  Rags  in  the  dark;  and  I  felt  him  wagging 
his  tail  against  me  and  I  went  to  sleep. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 


SAM  GETS  ON  THE  INSIDE  OF  THINGS 

HAD  made  up  my  mind 
to  wake  up  early  before 
anybody  came,  and  so  in 
the  morning  I  come  to  as 
if  I  had  an  alarm  clock 
inside  of  me;  it  is  that 
way  if  you  know  how  to 
make  up  your  mind.  I 
got  out  pretty  careful  and 
nobody  seen  me,  and  then 
I  went  between  some  rows 
of  cotton  bales  and  looked 
at  my  sore  place.  I  expected  it  would  be  black  and 
blue,  but  it  was  n't;  it  was  a  greeny  yellow  and 
did  n't  look  as  bad  as  it  ought  to.  But  it  did  n't 
hurt  none  unless  I  poked  it  and  so  it  did  n't  make 
no  difference ;  I  did  n't  need  to  poke  it  except  once 
in  a  while. 

I  was  pretty  hungry  that  morning;  Rags  was 
hungry,  too,  but  he  found  a  bone  and  brought  it 
along  till  I  would  stop  and  give  him  a  chance  at  it. 
I  went  across  the  levee  and  walked  around  dif 
ferent  directions,  not  knowing  the  best  place  to 
go.  Whenever  I  would  stop  to  think,  Rags  would 

354 


SAM  GETS  ON  THE  INSIDE  OF  THINGS       355 

lay  the  bone  down ;  and  whenever  a  man  come  along 
he  would  grab  it  up  again;  he  was  afraid  every 
body  would  want  it.  Rags  thought  people  was  like 
dogs ;  he  did  11  't  stop  to  think. 

After  a  while  I  come  across  a  big  market.  It  was 
just  a  big  roof  all  open  -at  the  sides  and  full  of  stuff/ ; 
it  was  like  groceries  and  butcher  shops  all  run  to 
gether,  with  stands  of  flowers  and  herbs  and  every 
thing  between.  I  went  and  looked  at  the  fish  and 
oysters  and  meat  and  vegetables  and  all  kinds  of 
victuals  that  was  n't  cooked  yet.  At  one  end  of  it 
I  come  to  the  smell  of  coffee.  Under  that  part  of 
the  roof  was  an  outdoors  restaurant  which  was  just 
two  rows  of  marble  stalls  that  you  walked  down 
between;  it  was  the  funniest  and  best  place  to  eat 
I  ever  seen.  I  bet  them  marble  stalls  would  'a' 
made  a  livery  stable  for  a  whole  circus  of  Shetland 
ponies ;  but  instead  of  a  manger  there  was  a  marble 
slab  for  you  to  eat  on.  You  went  in  like  a  horse 
and  sat  clown  on  your  stool  and  then  you  had  your 
three  marble  walls  around  you  and  your  back  was 
the  other  wall.  You  just  sat  there  with  your  back 
turned  to  everybody  that  was  going  through  to  the 
market  and  minded  your  own  business  and  they 
could  n't  see  nothing  and  you  could  n't  see  them; 
it  was  the  privatest  out-of-doors  place  I  ever  seen. 
It  made  me  think  of  the  bake  oven  at  Baton  Rouge ; 
things  is  more  outdoorsy  down  South  and  I  won 
dered  how  it  would  work  next.  I  walked  up  and 
down  and  looked  at  the  rows  of  backs  and  got 
hungrier  and  hungrier.  Some  was  sitting  up 
straight,  and  some  was  leaning  over,  and  some  was 


356  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

bobbing  up  and  down  and  meeting  every  mouthful 
half-way.  After  a  while  when  a  man  was  through 
being  fed  me  and  Rags  went  and  took  a  stall.  We 
ate  up  all  of  twenty  cents'  worth.  I  hated  to  spend 
money  that  way  just  for  eating ;  I  always  got  it  for 
nothing  when  I  was  working.  But  you  have  got  to 
do  it. 

Then  T  went  up  Canal  Street  and  I  come  across 
a  railroad  that  I  would  V  liked  to  'a'  had;  it  was 
about  three  sizes  smaller  than  a  regular  one.  I 
found  it  ran  out  to  a  place  called  Lake  Pontchar- 
train  and  only  cost  five  cents.  I  was  n't  intending 
to  go  there ;  but  it  usually  costs  two  or  three  dollars 
to  ride  on  a  steam  railroad  and  when  you  can  do  it 
for  five  cents  it  would  be  foolish  not  to.  So  I  went. 

It  went  out  back  of  the  city  and  I  kept  looking 
out  of  the  window.  After  we  left  the  city  the  main 
thing  we  passed  was  a  cemetery.  I  says  to  myself, 
"Here  you  are  again."  It  seemed  like  cemeteries 
come  awful  easy  to  me,  but  I  did  n  't  mind  it  now ; 
I  was  commencing  to  get  interested  in  the  different 
ones.  That  one  was  worth  while;  it  was  all  little 
houses  and  rows  of  places ;  it  was  a  cemetery  with 
out  any  graves  in  it  and  I  found  they  don't  have 
any  graves  in  New  Orleans  at  all.  At  first  I 
thought  it  was  just  the  fashion,  but  a  fellow  told 
me  the  reason  was  that  when  you  dig  a  hole  in  New 
Orleans  it  fills  right  up  with  marshy  water  and  so 
they  could  n't  keep  the  dead  people  down.  That  is 
why  they  have  them  rows  of  places.  They  call  them 
brick  rows  ovens  on  account  of  the  way  they  are 
made,  and  every  few  years  thev  take  some  out  and 


SAM  GETS  ON  THE  INSIDE  OF  THINGS       357 

put  the  bones  all  together  below  and  others  moves 
in.  Well,  that  was  a  new  one  on  me  and  there  was 
a  reason  in  that,  too;  some  people  ain't  such  big 
fools  as  you  'd  think  at  first.  I  wanted  to  go  and 
see  them;  but  if  I  had  got  off  I  would  n't  'a'  got 
my  five  cents'  worth.  So  I  staid  on. 

We  went  a  while  on  a  banked-up  track  through 
wet  woods  where  nobody  could  live.  I  thought 
maybe  the  water  was  overflow  but  it  was  just 
swamp ;  you  could  tell  the  difference  after  you 
looked  at  it  a  while.  Them  woods  was  n't  dry 
enough  to  gather  hickory  nuts  in  nor  wet  enough 
to  go  swimming;  there  was  live  alligators  in  them 
and  they  was  n't  even  good  for  Sunday-school  pic 
nics.  If  a  woods  ain't  good  for  that,  what  good  are 
they? 

The  locomotive  which  pulled  us  was  a  kind  that 
is  called  a  dummy,  but  it  found  its  way  out  to  the 
end  all  right;  it  stopped  on  the  edge  of  a  dark- 
looking  lake  that  you  could  n't  see  across.  I 
thought  at  first  it  was  swamp  water  too,  but  it  was 
salt  water.  It  sticks  in  from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
which  is  a  good  many  miles  away,  and  if  ships  don^t 
want  to  come  up  the  Mississippi  they  can  come  into 
the  city  the  back  way.  I  was  glad  I  found  that 
out ;  I  might  'a '  missed  some  of  the  ships. 

There  were  some  little  yachts  in  a  slip  and  a  man 
was  monkeying  with  the  machinery  of  one  with  a 
monkey-wrench ;  them  little  boats  is  heaps  of  care, 
they  ain't  old  and  tough  like  the  Speed.  The 
place  was  a  summer,  or  maybe  a  winter,  resort,  but 
there  was  n't  anybody  there  and  the  lake  looked 


358  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

dark  and  dismal  like  business  was  bad;  the  breeze 
was  blowing  a  little  off  the  water  and  bringing  in 
old  foam  and  stuff  and  making  it  look  pretty 
swampy  along  shore.  There  was  n't  much  but  an 
old  band-stand  and  a  walk  standing  out  in  the 
water  on  a  lot  of  piles  like  it  did  n't  know  what  to 
do  with  itself ;  it  was  just  like  you  'd  expect  to  see 
a  thing  standing  in  a  swampy  place  with  a  thou 
sand  legs. 

I  guessed  the  next  thing  for  us  to  do  was  to  turn 
and  go  back ;  and  just  when  I  was  thinking  that,  I 
come  across  the  fellow  that  had  the  bucketful  of 
fifty-cent  alligators ;  they  was  as  thick  in  the  water 
as  oysters  in  their  juice  and  I  could  n't  hardly  tell 
which  one  of  them  I  liked  best.  I  asked  him  how 
much  he  was  selling  them  for  and  he  asked  me  how 
much  money  did  I  have;  I  told  him  I  had  thirty- 
five  cents  but  five  of  it  was  n't  mine  by  rights  be 
cause  it  belonged  to  the  railroad  company  to  take 
me  back  again,  so  he  picked  me  out  a  smart  one 
for  thirty.  He  could  n't  bite  me  because  I  knew 
how  to  catch  him  by  the  back  of  the  neck ;  the  man 
said  he  would  n't  hurt  no  one  that  way.  I  seen  I 
could  n't  carry  him  that  way  all  the  time,  though. 
I  was  going  to  put  him  in  my  pocket  and  only  take 
him  out  when  I  wanted  him ;  but  if  I  done  that  and 
then  put  my  hand  into  my  dark  pocket  after  him 
he  would  have  the  best  of  me.  But  I  fixed  that  all 
right ;  I  tied  a  string  around  him  under  his  armpits 
and  dropped  him  in  and  I  tied  the  other  end  of  the 
string  in  a  buttonhole  and  wore  him  like  a  watch. 
Then  I  could  take  him  out  to  see  if  he  was  dead 


SAM  GETS  ON  THE  INSIDE  OF  THINGS       359 

and  he  could  n't  do  nothing  but  be  mad  about  it 
and  swim  in  the  air.  That  is  the  best  way  to  have 
an  alligator.  I  found  he  was  n  't  born  at  all,  he  was 
hatched  out  of  an  egg  and  I  wondered  how  long  it 
would  be  before  he  started  to  lay ;  but  the  man  said 
I  need  n't  be  in  a  hurry;  he  would  grow  up  in  a 
hundred  years. 

I  asked  him  some  more  questions  and  he  said  if 
I  did  n 't  know  what  to  do  with  myself  why  did  n 't 
I  go  up  to  the  laborinth;  and  he  pointed  up  the 
shore  to  a  square  place  with  green  hedge  around  it. 
So  I  went. 

I  found  the  laborinth  was  a  place  to  go  inside  of 
and  find  if  you  could  get  out  again;  it  was  all 
hedges  inside  of  a  hedge.  And  there  was  a  cave  in 
the  middle  all  made  out  of  rocks.  I  bet  I  could 
pilot  my  way  out  so  I  found  the  opening  in  the 
hedge  and  went  in.  The  path  followed  along  just 
inside  of  the  outer  hedge  and  turned  round  the 
end  of  a  hedge  and  come  back  alongside  of  itself 
with  a  hedge  between— and  every  once  in  a  while 
there  would  be  an  opening  to  go  into  some  other 
path  and  try  it  if  you  wanted  to.  No  matter  which 
one  you  took  you  would  end  up  where  the  path 
did  n't  go  no  farther.  Then  you  would  have  to  go 
back  a  piece  and  take  a  chance  on  another  and  then 
you  would  have  a  lot  of  more  to  guess  on.  And  by 
that  time  you  could  n't  remember  how  you  come. 

When  I  had  been  fooled  about  forty  times  I 
come  into  the  cave.  It  was  made  to  sit  down  in  and 
take  a  rest  and  while  I  was  doing  it  I  took  another 
look  at  the  alligator.  I  had  n't  named  him  yet,  so 


300  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

I  guessed  the  best  time  to  do  it  was  now  where  it 
was  quiet  and  a  good  place  to  think  up  things.  I 
thought  of  Fido  and  Rover  but  they  would  n't  do 
and  I  did  n't  know  no  alligator  names.  You  have 
got  to  get  an  alligator  name  for  an  alligator,  and 
that  is  mighty  hard  because  they  don't  take  after 
anything.  The  best  I  could  do  was  George;  it 
was  n't  very  good.  It  did  n't  sound  right  at  first, 
but  after  I  let  him  be  it  a  while  it  done  better.  And 
afterwards  I  seen  why  it  seemed  to  be  just  the 
right  name;  it  was  because  George  that  used  to 
tote  sacks  on  the  Speed  had  such  a  big  mouth.  Any 
way,  it  was  the  best  I  could  think  up,  because  Rags 
kept  barking  all  the  time ;  he  did  n  't  like  alligators. 
Then  I  put  him  back  and  started  to  get  out. 

There  is  only  one  way  to  get  out  of  that  place 
and  it  looks  like  there  was  a  hundred— but  all  them 
ways  is  mistakes;  and  it  is  as  crooked  as  the  river 
I  heard  of  where  the  steamboats  have  hinges  in 
the  middle  to  go  round  the  bends.  The  path  come 
to  an  end  just  when  I  was  getting  to  the  place  to 
go  out.  I  had  to  go  back  awhile  and  then  I  took 
my  choice  of  an  opening  and  went  on  making 
turns;  and  I  come  back  to  near  the  same  place 
again.  I  done  it  again  and  it  got  to  be  like  playing 
checkers  with  myself;  and  the  man  that  built  it 
always  beat.  Well,  I  thinks  to  myself,  ' '  I  will  beat 
you  this  time  " ;  so  I  went  right  around  and  did  n 't 
go  through  two  openings  that  you  'd  think  I  would 
and  then  I  went  through  one  where  you  would  n't 
be  expecting  me  to  do  it ;  and  after  a  while  I  was 
back  in  the  cave  again.  But  I  would  n 't  stay  there ; 


SAM  GETS  ON  THE  INSIDE  OF  THINGS       361 

I  turned  right  around  and  went  at  it  again.  And 
no  matter  how  different  I  done  I  would  come  round 
to  one*  of  the  places  I  started  from.  The  nearest  I 
could  get  was  to  a  part  of  the  outer  hedge. 

A  laborinth  is  a  good  game  if  you  could  quit 


The  best  I  could  do  was  George" 


when  you  want  to;  but  you  get  in  and  then  you 
have  got  to  keep  it  up  till  you  get  out.  And  when 
you  just  want  to  go  away  and  can't  it  is  a  nuisance. 
The  hedge  was  just  up  to  my  neck  so  that  I  could 
look  around;  and  I  guessed  the  best  way  was  to 
study  it  out  till  I  seen  my  way  clear.  I  pretty  near 


362  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

done  it  half  a  dozen  times ;  but  it  always  come  out 
wrong. 

Well,  the  next  time  I  got  to  the  outer  hedge  I 
thinks  to  myself,  "I  will  put  Rags  out,  anyway; 
that  will  be  some  satisfaction."  I  lifted  him  up 
and  gave  him  a  boost  over  the  top ;  and  I  would  'a ' 
done  that  myself  but  you  could  n't  climb  that 
hedge.  What  does  Rags  do  but  run  right  to  the 
little  opening  and  come  in  again,  and  I  thinks  to 
myself,  ' '  Now  he  will  be  lost,  too. ' '  And  there  was 
enough  of  us  looking  for  each  other  without  having 
a  dog  in  the  mix-up.  I  could  n't  see  him  no  more, 
but  I  guessed  he  was  trying  to  find  me  somewheres 
in  the  laborinth.  So  I  stood  still  and  wondered 
what  would  come  of  it.  I  bet  it  was  n't  half  a 
minute  till  he  come  trotting  up  my  path  and 
stopped  with  his  tongue  out  and  wagged  his  tail. 
I  wished  I  knew  how  he  got  in ;  I  bet  the  same  way 
would  'a'  took  me  out.  Then  I  shook  my  finger  at 
him  and  spoke  cross  and  told  him  to  git  out  of  here. 
But  that  would  n't  work;  he  only  laid  down  and 
made  himself  humble  and  looked  disgraced.  I  seen 
that  if  a  dog  could  do  it  there  was  n't  any  use 
studying  it  so  hard;  you  can't  figure  your  way  out 
of  a  thing  that  there  ain't  no  sense  in.  I  just 
trotted  around  any  way  at  all  till  I  would  come 
out  by  accident ;  but  it  was  a  long  time  happening. 
Then  I  wished  that  Rags  would  take  the  lead  but 
he  would  n't.  He  did  n't  care  whether  he  got  out 
or  not ;  he  only  wanted  to  tag  around  where  I  was. 
And  he  knew  the  way  all  the  time  but  you  could  n  't 
get  it  out  of  him ;  that  is  the  way  with  dogs. 


SAM  GETS  ON  THE  INSIDE  OF  THINGS        363 

While  I  was  standing  thinking  it  over  a  news 
boy  passed  outside  and  he  asked  if  I  was  stuck  and 
says,  ' '  Are  you  willing  to  give  it  up  ? ' ' 

* '  No,  I  won 't  give  it  up  ;  no  such  thing, ' '  I  says. 

Then  he  said  he  knew  the  way.  I  said  I  bet  he 
did  n  't  and  he  said  he  bet  he  did ;  and  he  took  the 
dare  and  come  right  in.  And  it  did  n't  take  him 
no  time  to  come  right  to  me. 

''I  done  that  myself,"  I  says,  "and  I  can  do  it 
again.  But  let  's  see  you  get  out." 

Then  he  showed  me  how  he  could  do  it  and  I  went 
along.  I  was  out  of  it,  but  that  was  n't  no  satis 
faction  ;  I  did  n 't  do  it  myself.  He  would  n 't  tell 
me  how,  but  when  he  found  I  was  from  a  circus, 
which  I  proved  to  him  by  Rags,  he  told  me  mighty 
quick.  Hie  told  me  how  it  was  one  turn  to  the  left 
and  skip  one  opening  and  two  turns  to  the  right 
and  skip  two ;  and  he  took  me  in  and  out  saying  it 
off  like  a  croshay  book.  And  when  I  knew  it  he 
went  away  and  I  done  it  myself.  I  staid  there  a 
long  time  and  practised  till  I  knew  all  the  bends 
and  crossings  and  could  pilot  all  around  in  it  and 
would  n't  never  forget  it.  Then  we  went  and  got 
on  the  train;  there  was  n't  no  more  to  do  out 
there.  New  Orleans  is  a  great  place  and  the  main 
thing  is  the  laborinth;  it  is  the  principal  thing  to 
see  down  South. 

When  I  got  back  to  town  I  was  awful  hungry. 
But  it  was  n't  any  use  to  be  hungry,  because  the 
things  I  had  bought  cost  exactly  as  much  money  as 
I  had.  It  was  away  past  dinner-time  and  I  seen  I 
would  have  to  go  to  work  now  and  get  a  job  quick. 


364  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

I  went  to  see  if  the  Woodland  was  in  and  she 
was  n't;  so  that  settled  that.  Anyway,  I  did  n't 
seem  to  notice  river  boats  so  much  since  I  started  to 
be  a  sailor.  I  walked  up  and  down  and  kept  look- 


. 

"  The  main  thing  is  the  laborinth" 

ing  at  ships  mostly.  That  ' '  river  rat ' '  business  was 
in  my  head  yet,  too ;  and  I  thought  if  I  could  only 
go  one  trip  across  the  ocean  I  would  come  back  and 
be  a  pilot  again ;  then  I  bet  nobody  could  say  any 
thing  like  that  to  me.  I  guessed  maybe  I  better  try 
the  ships,  anyway. 


SAM  GETS  ON  THE  INSIDE  OF  THINGS       365 

I  tried  miles  and  miles  that  afternoon,  but  it 
did  n't  do  no  good.  There  was  brigs  and  barks 
being  stuffed  with  cotton  and  big  blank-sided  ocean 
tramps  loading  with  coal  and  ships  of  all  kinds 
being  filled  with  wheat  and  there  was  cat-boats  and 
ferry-boats  and  fruit-boats  crowded  under  their 
sterns  and  between;  and  there  was  a  big  French 
liner  with  three  red  stacks  slanting  back  from  the 
wind,  and  side-wheelers  that  could  go  on  the  Gulf, 
and  river  boats  with  painted  eagles  and  things 
hung  up  like  campaign  banners  between  the  stacks ; 
there  was  all  kinds.  There  was  more  over  on  the 
other  side  of  the  river,  too.  You  'd  think  the  whole 
country  was  being  emptied  down  the  Mississippi 
and  loaded  for  Europe.  Who  'd  'a'  thought  that 
that  wheat  we  had  gathered  along  the  Missouri  was 
going  off  to  them  foreign  countries.  I  knew  this 
was  it  because  the  Speed  always  left  hers  in  the 
elevator— and  that  is  where  the  Woodland  got  it— 
and  this  is  where  she  brought  it;  I  seen  it  all  my 
self.  When  I  seen  that  wheat  being  loaded  en  I 
felt  more  like  going  along ;  travel  is  awful  catching. 

I  could  n't  ship  before  the  mast  on  account  of 
being  too  small  and  I  could  n  't  get  on  a  big  steamer 
as  cabin-boy  because  they  was  too  high-toned  and 
would  n't  take  Rags;  so  there  was  n't  anything  to 
do  but  get  another  job  in  a  cook's  galley.  Well, 
some  of  them  cooks  was  cross  and  some  was  busy 
and  some  was  foreigners  and  two  was  a  Chinaman ; 
I  got  so  that  I  understood  "No"  in  any  language. 
After  a  while  I  got  to  feeling  down  in  the  mouth 
and  then  I  noticed  that  they  did  n't  pay  even  as 


366  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

much  attention  to  me  as  they  did  at  first.  It 
seemed  as  if  they  just  looked  up  and  knew  right 
off  it  was  only  me.  It  don 't  pay  to  get  down  in  the 
mouth,  especially  when  you  are  busted;  it  makes 
bad  luck. 

By  sundown  I  was  a  couple  of  miles  away  from 
my  sleeping-place  and  I  was  so  hungry  I  could 
hardly  hold  it.  But  I  had  a  lot  of  ships  left  for  to 
morrow  and  that  was  a  good  thing.  I  guess  Rags 
was  kind  of  played  out,  too,  because  he  wanted  to 
sit  down,  which  is  the  way  with  a  spaniel  when  he 
gets  fat;  but  I  had  to  get  back  to  Canal  Street  to 
go  to  bed. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 


A  SWEETLY  SOLEMN  THOUGHT 


HEN  I  got  back  it  was  dark 
again  and  the  levee  was  all 
made  up  for  the  night.  The 
cotton  bales  was  covered  and 
the  rows  of  molasses  barrels 
had  the  tester's  sticks  stood 
up  beside  them  and  their 
bungs  in  tight.  So  I  sat 
down  to  rest.  The  moon 
was  right  on  the  end  of  the  tall  black  stack  of  the 
cotton  compress,  like  it  belonged  there ;  from  where 
I  was  sitting  you  'd  most  think  it  come  up  out  of 
the  chimney.  That  compress  had  another  of  them 
steamboat  chimneys  with  fancy  points  on  the  end, 
like  they  have  on  lots  of  factories  down  South ;  and 
some  has  a  pair  of  them  just  like  a  steamboat. 
You  'd  'most  expect  to  see  a  factory  blow  its 
whistle  and  start  away  up  the  street.  The  fancy 
points  of  this  one  bent  out  to  hold  the  moon  that 
was  coming  up  pretty  fast,  like  it  was  a  bubble 
being  blowed  out  of  the  stack.  And  when  I  looked 
again  it  had  let  go  and  was  floating  away. 

When  I  had  watched  till  I  seen  that  was  done  I 
guessed  the  next  thing  was  to  go  to  bed,  but  my 

367 


The  levee  was  all  made  up  for  the  night " 


A  SWEETLY  SOLEMN  THOUGHT          369 

mind  kept  a-thinking  of  the  molasses  inside  of  the 
barrels.  I  went  over  and  looked  at  one  of  the 
tester's  sticks  which  had  been  shoved  all  day 
through  bung-holes  to  sound  the  molasses  and  there 
was  n  't  much  left  on ;  most  of  it  had  run  off.  But 
they  was  long,  and  so  when  I  wiped  the  whole  stick 
across  my  tongue  there  come  a  little  swallow  off  the 
end,  one  on  each  side.  So  I  went  along  up  the 
levee  and  took  what  there  was  on  each  stick,  which 
was  n't  stealing  because  nobody  was  going  to  use 
it,  anyways ;  but  when  I  was  about  half  a  block  up 
a  sailor  that  was  walking  soft  back  to  his  ship  see 
me  when  I  was  n't  noticing,  and  asked  was  I  prac 
ticing  to  be  a  sword-swallower,  and  you  bet  I  looked 
around  quick.  But  I  seen  it  was  no  policeman.  So 
I  told  him  I  guessed  maybe  he  thought  he  was  aw 
ful  smart,  and  he  went  on  and  tended  to  his  busi 
ness;  you  don't  need  pay  no  attention  to  sailors, 
because  they  have  n't  got  nothing  to  say  on  land, 
anyways.  I  went  right  along  and  cleaned  up  all  of 
them.  It  was  as  good  as  eating,  at  first,  but  it 
stopped  tasting  good  before  I  was  through  being 
hungry.  It  was  the  first  time  I  ever  come  to  the 
end  of  molasses.  Some  people  try  to  make  out  that 
sweet  stuff  spoils  your  appetite,  but  it  did  n't  mine. 
It  is  kind  of  true,  but  when  you  try  to  make  out  it 
is  eating,  your  stomach  remembers  about  it  and  is 
dissatisfied.  Lots  of  people  believe  things  that  they 
only  heard. 

All  the  same  it  helped  me  to  get  to  sleep,  which 
is  the  best  way  to  spoil  your  appetite,  and  when  I 
seen  for  sure  that  nobody  was  looking  I  dived  under 
a  tarpaulin  and  was  all  right  again. 

24 


370  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

Well,  that  night  I  dreamed  things  that  nobody 
could  ever  make  up.  It  was  all  about  cooks.  There 
was  all  kinds  of  cooks  and  every  blame  one  of  them 
had  a  knife  in  his  hand.  They  was  all  gathered  to 
gether  around  me  and  holding  their  knives  tight 
and  telling  me  ''No."  There  was  big  fat  butchery 
cooks  with  chicken-blood  on  them,  and  there  was 
thin,  cruel-looking  pirate  cooks,  and  there  was  wall 
eyed  Chinese  cooks  with  the  expression  all  wiped 
off  their  faces;  there  was  some  that  looked  right 
through  me  and  some  that  could  n't  understand 
nothing,  but  anyway  they  was  all  good  and  tired  of 
me.  It  seemed  like  they  all  met  me  somewheres  out 
on  the  ocean  where  it  was  all  up  and  down  waves, 
but  at  the  same  time  it  was  n't  on  the  ocean  at  all, 
it  was  on  the  land.  What  I  done  was  I  started  to 
walk  across  the  ocean  and  it  was  so  uphill  and  slip 
pery  that  I  thought  up  a  ship  and  got  on  it ;  and  it 
did  n't  always  stay  a  ship  but  would  turn  into  a 
laborinth  without  you  noticing  it  at  all.  But  how 
ever  it  happened  there  was  good  sense  in  it,  and  the 
next  morning  I  had  forgot  the  sensible  part ;  I 
could  only  remember  pieces  of  the  dream  and  they 
would  n't  fit  together.  I  guess  being  so  hungry  dis 
agreed  with  me.  But  that  dream  sounded  so  natural 
anybody  would  'a'  thought  it  was  true.  You 
would  n't  never  stop  to  look  into  it.  The  next 
morning  when  I  woke  up  and  looked  back  I  was 
mighty  glad  I  got  out  of  it  all  right ;  and  I  made  up 
my  mind  I  would  n  't  eat  no  molasses  for  breakfast. 
And  that  was  all  there  was,  so  I  did  n't  have  any 
thing. 


A  SWEETLY  SOLEMN  THOUGHT          371 

But  the  alligator  and  Rags  was  in  luck.  The 
sewers  in  New  Orleans  is  just  gutters  flowing  along 
each  edge  of  the  street  and  there  was  good  stuff 
coming  along.  I  sat  down  on  the  curbstone  and  let 
the  alligator  swim  a  while  on  the  end  of  his  string 
so  he  would  n  't  dry  up ;  and  Rags  stopped  a  couple 
of  things  that  he  liked.  It  is  the  easiest  city  to  have 
an  alligator  in ;  down  there  they  can  have  no  cellars 
nor  cisterns  nor  anything  underground  because  the 
city  is  lower  than  the  river  and  the  ground  is  ter 
rible  leaky;  and  that  is  why  the  sewers  is  on  top, 
too,  which  is  what  I  say  that  everything  is  out- 
doorsy  down  there.  All  you  have  to  do  is  to  stop 
anywheres  on  the  edge  of  the  sidewalk  and  take  out 
your  alligator  and  give  him  a  swim,  and  if  you  let 
him  out  for  recess,  regular,  he  gets  along  first-class. 
And  something  to  eat,  too ;  which  he  can  suit  him 
self. 

When  George  and  Rags  was  done  I  went  over  to 
the  market  eating-place  just  to  take  a  look.  I 
walked  up  and  down  between  the  rows  of  backs  in 
the  marble  stalls  till  I  'most  wished  I  was  a  horse 
that  had  a  stall  somewheres  that  I  could  go  in  and 
not  have  to  pay  nothing.  But  it  did  n't  do  no  good 
to  stay  there;  it  only  made  me  jealous  and  did  n't 
get  me  nothing,  so  I  guessed  I  had  better  go  and 
tend  to  business. 

I  had  to  walk  about  two  miles  before  I  could  be 
gin  with  the  ship  where  I  left  off.  I  kept  going 
from  one  ship  to  another  and  asking  the  cooks  and 
it  was  just  like  the  dream  I  had.  You  can  believe 
in  dreams  or  not,  whichever  you  want,  but  that  was 


372  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

one  dream  that  come  true;  I  did  n't  get  no  job.  I 
kept  going  and  going  till  the  ships  was  so  far  apart 
that  it  did  n  't  pay  no  more ;  and  then  I  seen  I  would 
have  to  walk  three  or  four  miles  to  try  the  other 
end  which  I  had  n't  finished  up.  I  was  getting 
kind  of  tired  of  being  a  sailor  and  if  I  had  got  a  job 
maybe  I  would  n't  'a'  took  it  longer  than  a  couple 
of  meals ;  but  when  things  is  keeping  right  on  get 
ting  the  best  of  you  that  way  and  you  have  put  so 
much  work  on  it  you  don't  like  to  give  up. 

When  I  got  back  to  town  I  was  four  meals  be 
hind  and  it  was  after  dinner-time.  And  then  when 
I  come  to  the  fruit  wharf  I  found  out  something. 
I  found  that  if  you  go  and  take  it  off  the  little  pile 
where  they  throw  it  you  can  have  fruit  to  eat  for 
nothing;  a  banana  which  is  ready  to  eat  is  pulled 
off  and  got  rid  of  because  they  only  can  ship  green 
ones  away  and  the  people  up  North  ripen  them  to 
suit  themselves.  When  I  seen  a  fellow  eating  one 
free  I  went  to  the  little  pile  and  took  some,  too.  I 
kept  going  back  every  once  in  a  while  and  then  the 
man  seen  me.  The  whole  shipload  belonged  to  that 
stoop-shouldered  little  man  and  when  he  seen  they 
was  some  good  to  me  he  come  at  me  with  his  cane 
and  drove  me  away.  After  that  I  was  getting  kind 
of  disappointed.  I  dassent  sleep  under  the  tar 
paulins  and  I  dassent  eat  throwed-away  bananas; 
I  dassent  do  nothing  because  everything  was  so 
valuable. 

But  I  had  got  some  of  them,  all  right.  I  don't 
know  how  many  I  ate ;  I  went  back  so  many  times 
I  lost  track,  but  I  bet  it  was  a  lots— that  was  what 
gave  me  the  stomach-ache. 


A  SWEETLY  SOLEMN  THOUGHT          373 

You  see  after  I  had  sat  around  in  the  sun  a  while 
to  rest  up  before  I  would  go  to  the  other  end  of  the 
ships,  I  got  a  terrible  pain  in  it.  So  then  every 
thing  was  upset  and  I  could  n  't  go  to  look  for  a  job 
at  all;  I  was  worse  off  than  when  I  started.  I  sat 
on  the  edge  of  the  wharf  and  doubled  up  tight  and 
tried  to  shut  it  off,  but  it  found  a  way  to  hurt  any 
how  ;  it  was  like  I  had  swallowed  a  toothache.  After 
a  while  I  laid  back  careless  and  tried  to  make  out 
it  was  n 't  nothing  and  thought  of  ten  dollars ;  but 
you  can't  get  around  a  stomach-ache  that  way. 
When  I  thought  hard  about  not  having  it  and  tried 
to  pass  it  off  it  just  started  up  like  it  knew  I  was  n't 
paying  it  enough  attention.  So  then  I  did  n't  try 
to  fool  it  no  more.  I  just  thought  of  a  saucerful  of 
Missouri  brandy— and  that  was  on  the  square,  be 
cause  I  did  wish  I  had  it. 

While  I  was  sitting  there  a  fellow  that  was  a 
tramp  come  along  and  sat  down  near  me  with  a 
paper  bag  in  his  hands;  I  guess  he  wanted  some 
company.  He  asked  me  what  I  was  waiting  for 
and  when  I  told  him  he  said  that  was  the  best  thing 
to  do  because  a  stomach-ache  always  come  to  an 
end  sometime  and  he  guessed  mine  would.  He  said 
what  can't  be  cured  must  be  endured,  and  it  was 
pretty  true  thing,  because  he  had  cured  himself  of 
lots  of  things  that  way.  Well,  I  was  glad  he  come 
to  call ;  it  done  me  good  to  talk  about  the  stomach 
ache.  I  found  he  was  n't  a  real  tramp ;  he  was  just 
doing  anything  at  all  till  he  could  get  a  job.  And 
I  don 't  call  anybody  a  tramp  that  is  doing  that ;  it 
ain't  so  easy  to  get  a  job  right  off.  He  had  had 
luck  just  when  his  dinner-time  was  coming.  He 


374  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

seen  a  pile  of  wood  in  front  of  a  bake  shop,  which 
is  a  good  sign  of  a  job,  and  that  is  how  he  got  the 
bag  of  stuff.  It  was  all  angel  food  which  had  gone 
wrong.  It  happened  that  just  when  the  angel-food 
had  been  put  in  the  oven  and  was  starting  to  rise  a 
fellow  come  in  to  deliver  a  barrel  of  flour  and  he 
dumped  it  down  careless  on  the  floor,  which  any 
thing  like  that  must  n't  happen  to  disturb  angel 
food  when  it  is  coming  to  the  point.  It  is  awful 
sensitive  and  delicate  and  that  made  it  fall  in  the 
baking;  and  then  it  was  n't  light  enough  to 
sell;  and  the  woman  was  awful  mad  at  that  big 
fellow.  So  she  just  gave  it  all  to  the  tramp.  He 
gave  me  a  piece ;  but  it  did  n  't  fill  up  much.  It  was 
a  high-toned  sponge  cake  that  is  good  to  eat  after 
wards. 

"I  wish,"  I  says,  "that  the  fellow  had  let  two 
barrels  fall;  maybe  that  would  'a'  got  it  solider  so 
it  would  fill  up  with  less  chewing,  like  bread." 

"I  guess  an  earthquake  would  n't  'a'  hurt  it 
none.  That  might  'a'  made  it  about  right  for  us," 
he  says. 

He  gave  me  another  piece  but  that  did  n't  do 
much  good ;  and  then  he  could  n 't  spare  any  more ; 
he  said  he  found  it  did  n't  go  as  far  as  he  expected. 
When  he  was  through  with  dinner  he  got  up  to  go 
and  look  for  supper  and  I  said  I  was  glad  I  met 
him  and  he  said  he  was  glad  he  met  me.  Then  he 
told  me  to  not  mind  the  stomach-ache  and  went 
away. 

The  ache  would  stop  a  while  like  it  was  going  to 
let  up ;  and  just  when  I  decided  it  was  through  it 


A  SWEETLY  SOLEMN  THOUGHT          375 

would  start  fooling  around  inside  of  me  again. 
After  a  while  I  did  n't  trust  it.  I  had  to  sit  there 
and  stand  it  till  it  was  'most  evening;  I  wished  it 
was  like  a  snake  that  would  die  when  the  sun  went 
down.  But  it  kept  squirming  once  in  a  while  after 
it  was  most  done  for. 

When  it  was  after  dusk  there  come  along  a  gang 
of  sailors ;  and  the  fellow  with  ear-rings  in  his  ears 
hailed  me  and  said  ' '  Hello " ;  so  I  went  along  and 
joined  in  with  them.  They  went  down  the  levee  till 
they  come  to  a  saloon ;  then  everybody  stopped  and 
asked  everybody  to  have  a  drink.  That  would  be 
eleven  drinks  apiece  right  there,  not  counting  me. 
But  I  was  supposed  to  be  along  with  somebody,  so 
I  went  in,  too.  The  waiter  did  n't  count  me  at 
first,  till  one  of  the  sailors  asked  the  other  one  why 
he  did  n't  see  that  his  friend's  friend  was  waited 
on,  and  after  that  I  belonged ;  and  I  took  my  brandy 
in  a  glass  like  the  rest  of  them,  because  it  was  the 
French  kind,  and  it  would  be  more  polite.  But  if 
it  was  French  it  knew  its  business  just  like  the  kind 
from  Missouri ;  it  stopped  my  stomach-ache  at  a 
quarter  past  nine. 

There  was  all  kinds  of  sailors  sitting  around  the 
tables,  some  in  blue  jackets  with  brass  buttons  from 
the  big  steamer  and  some  in  regular  sailor  clothes 
which  they  are  so  used  to  they  can  keep  their  pants 
right  up  without  a  belt  or  nothing ;  and  money  wa 
a-going  free.    When  the  fourth  and  fifth  fellows  a 
our  table  set  them  up,  I  took  a  little  each  time— bin 
it  cost  just  as  much— and  it  woke  up  my  appetite 
again.    And  when  the  sixth  fellow  seen  his  chance 


376  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

to  order  again  they  asked  me  what  I  was  a-going  to 
have;  and  I  said  I  guessed  I  would  just  take  the 
ten  cents.  Well,  you  would  'a'  thought  I  done 
something  awful  the  way  everybody  looked;  so 
right  away  I  said  I  guessed  I  would  change  it  for 
ginger-ale.  Of  course  I  know  that  they  don't 
usually  do  that  way— I  guess  I  know  as  much  about 
being  polite  as  anybody— but  if  I  would  rather 
have  the  ten  cents  what  difference  would  it  ought 
make  by  rights  to  them  ?  But  I  did  n  't  say  nothing 
when  I  seen  they  was  shocked ;  I  just  drank  the  ale. 
While  I  was  drinking  it  I  got  to  counting  up,  and 
I  seen  that  when  all  the  eleven  had  treated  once  it 
would  be  anyway  one  hundred  and  twenty-one 
drinks,  which  is  twelve  dollars  and  ten  cents,  and 
I  did  n't  have  so  much  time  to  spare.  So  I  called 
Rags  from  under  the  table  where  he  had  gone  to  get 
away  from  a  sailor  that  was  too  familiar,  and  then 
I  excused  myself  polite  and  said  I  was  much 
obliged  and  went. 

By  that  time  the  moon  had  got  away  up,  so  I  laid 
low  awhile  and  seen  my  chance  to  go  to  bed.  There 
was  a  little  patch  on  the  tarpaulin  that  had  come 
unsewed ;  it  was  like  a  window  in  my  roof  and  was 
good  to  look  up  through.  I  laid  on  my  back  awhile 
looking  at  a  couple  of  stars  and  got  to  thinking  of 
them  things;  but  after  awhile  I  did  n't  like  them 
stars  very  well,  so  I  moved  over  a  little  and  watched 
the  moon  making  time.  She  was  going  along  about 
as  swift  as  a  raft  a  couple  of  miles  off,  and  when 
she  was  past  I  would  move  over  a  couple  of  inches 
and  get  a  line  on  her  again.  It  is  funny  how  they 


I  guessed  I  would  just  take  the  ten  cents 


377 


378  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

all  move  along  together  by  themselves  and  make 
regular  trips  that  way ;  I  guess  there  must  be  some 
kind  of  a  current  up  there  to  drift  them  all  along 
like  that. 

When  the  moon  had  crowded  me  over  to  the  edge 
of  the  bale  I  'most  fell  off;  my  head  was  feeling 
queer,  so  I  guessed  I  had  better  stop  looking  at  the 
moon  and  go  to  sleep.  After  I  was  asleep  I  had  a 
dream  that  was  different  than  any;  I  dreamt  that 
my  head  was  getting  bigger  and  bigger.  When  it 
was  so  big  I  could  n  't  'a '  stood  up  with  it  I  lost  my 
hold  on  something  and  started  to  fall.  And  instead 
of  falling  down  I  fell  up;  it  is  a  wonder  I  did  n't 
bump  into  a  star.  I  guess  it  was  from  looking  up 
so  much  that  it  seemed  like  looking  down ;  anyway, 
I  am  glad  things  are  fixed  so  that  you  don't  fall  up 
instead  of  down,  I  would  hate  to  get  started.  My 
head  kept  getting  bigger  but  I  did  n't  know  any 
more  than  I  did  before.  I  don't  even  know  what 
the  rest  of  the  dream  was  with  all  my  head  was  so 
big.  Once  in  the  night  I  dreamed  something  that 
scared  myself  and  I  woke  up  quick.  My  head  was 
all  sore  inside  like  my  brains  had  took  too  much 
exercise;  I  must  'a'  thought  up  a  lots.  My  head 
felt  big  yet  from  the  dream,  so  I  laid  till  I  would 
get  woke  up  out  of  it  and  start  sleeping  different. 


CHAPTER  XXX 


CLANCY  BOBS  UP  AGAIN 


HILE  I  was  laying  there  in 
the  dark  I  heard  a  noise 
moving  around  outside  like 
it  belonged  to  something. 
And  I  says  to  myself, 
''What  is  that?"  I  sat  up 
careful  and  looked  through 
my  peep-hole,  and  that 
'///  time  I  seen  a  star  as  big 
as  your  fist ;  it  was  a  nickel- 
plated  one.  The  police 
man  was  standing  bouncing  his  club  on  the  wharf, 
it  would  strike  on  one  end  and  then  the  other  with 
a  woody  ring  and  at  the  same  time  he  would  jerk 
the  cord  and  it  would  jump  back  to  his  hand  as 
straight  as  if  it  was  a  ball ;  I  guess  he  was  prac 
tising  hitting  people  that  was  getting  away,  he 
could  do  it  good.  I  wished  he  would  go  away. 

I  looked  up  through  the  little  hole  and  the  moon 
was  gone,  so  I  guessed  it  must  be  getting  along 
towards  morning.  Then  I  watched  him  again. 
When  he  was  through  practising  he  took  his  club 
and  hit  on  the  head  of  a  loud,  empty  barrel.  Then 
I  heard  an  answer  away  up  the  levee— a  hit  just 

379 


380  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

like  his.  He  gave  a  couple  of  hits  back  and  the 
other  one  done  the  same;  you  'd  think  they  was 
pilots  arguing  on  their  whistles  about  who  was  to 
have  their  rights.  I  could  'a'  understood  what 
they  was  saying  if  it  had  n't  been  clubs. 

"I  am  going  to  pass  you  to  the  right"— " No  I 
want  that  side  to  make  a  landing"— "All  right; 
have  it  your  own  way"— "I  understand  that  you 
understand  what  I  mean,  then ;  let  her  go  at  that '  '— 
that  was  what  they  was  saying.  But  I  guess  they 
must  'a'  meant  something  else,  because  the  up-river 
policeman  kept  hitting  the  wharf  once  in  a  while. 
You  could  tell  he  was  coming  in  the  dark.  Then  he 
hove  in  sight  beside  the  other  policeman.  They 
did  n't  say  nothing  at  all;  they  just  parted  their 
coats  behind  and  sat  down  together  with  the  tails 
in  their  laps.  They  did  n  't  say  nothing  for  a  while. 
Then  one  of  them  says : 

1  'How  is  't,  Mooney?" 

"No'thin'doin',"hesays. 

I  listened  to  that;  then  I  kept  close  to  my  hole 
to  hear  if  they  would  say  anything  else.  They 
did  n't  say  nothing  for  a  while.  Then  Mooney  felt 
in  the  tail  of  his  coat  and  took  out  a  lot  of  bananas. 
He  laid  them  on  the  barrel  and  helped  himself  to 
one. 

"Have  wan,  McGee,"  he  says. 

McGee  he  took  one.  He  laid  the  peelings  back 
careful  with  the  white  part  sticking  up  in  the 
middle;  it  looked  like  a  fat  lily.  Then  he  put  it 
to  his  mouth  and  when  he  took  it  away  it  was  half 
gone.  I  was  glad  to  see  that.  I  was  glad  he  took 


CLANCY  BOBS  UP  AGAIN  381 

such  big  bites;  he  would  n't  be  fooling  around 
there  so  long.  The  up-river  policeman  done  it,  too. 

"Have  a  red  wan,  McGee." 

"Don't  care  if  I  do,"  he  says.  And  he  took  an 
other.  When  he  had  it  half  skinned  he  held  it  up 
before  him;  but  he  did  n't  bite  right  away.  He 
used  it  to  make  motions  with  while  he  said  some 
thing.  I  could  n't  hear  all  of  what  it  was;  some 
times  I  would  get  a  few  words,  but  they  would  n't 
mean  much  without  the  others.  Then  McGee  spoke 
louder. 

"Jerry  is  back  on  Truck  Eight,  agin." 

"Ye  don't  tell  me!  Did  n't  th'  butther  route 
suit  him  1 ' ' 

"He  did  n't  suit  th'  business." 

"Ye  don't  tell  me!  'T  is  quare.  He  said  th' 
other  felly  med  money  out  av  it. ' ' 

"But  not  Jerry;  he  did  n't  know  th'  saycrits." 

' '  Is  there  saycrits  in  that  ? ' ' 

"There  was  wan  av  thim;  an'  that  was  enough. 
Th'  other  felly  had  a  tin  tube  that  he  would  shove 
down  into  a  jar  av  it ;  and  he  wud  pull  out  a  plug 
to  show  how  he  was  honest  an'  't  was  good  all  th1 
ways  to  th'  bottom.  An'  so  it  was— in  that  place. 
But  't  was  not  good  all  th'  way  around.  Jerry 
done  part  av  it  all  right,  but  he  did  n't—";  and 
then  I  did  n't  hear  some  more.  The  down-river 
policeman  would  start  out  with  a  pretty  good 
voice;  but  before  he  was  through  sometimes  he 
would  nudge  up  and  get  familiar  and  end  up  in  a 
secret  whisper.  Sometimes  he  was  right  out  with 
it  and  sometimes  he  talked  that  Irish  way. 


382  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

' '  He  '11  niver  make  a  business  man. ' ' 

"He  has  too  big  a  hear-r-rt.  He  had  betther 
drive  th'  thruck  an'  be  a  fireman— He  '11  not  be 
puttin'  on  an  exthry  dab  iv  THAT  ivery  time  a 
lady  smiles  at  him.  These  are  nice  mealy  banan- 
nys,  Mooney. " 

"They  're  that.  Ye  can  make  a  meal  aff  th' 
likes  av  thim.  'T  is  a  pity  Ireland  was  not  down 
where  th'  ready  eatin'  grows  for  nothin'.  An' 
that  by  th'  tree-load.  Who  was  tellin'  it  to  ye,  about 
Jerry?" 

"He  come  to  swim  last  night  and  he  tould  it  me 
himsilf.  He  's  not  ashamed  av  bein'  too  honest,  if 
it  did  bring  him  to  disgrace — so  says  he." 

He  took  another  banana.  The  way  they  was 
eating  fruit  made  me  sick  to  look  at  them. 

*  *  Swimmin ', ' '  says  Mooney.  *  *  There  was  a  felly 
up  at  my  place  the  other  night  could  bate  him  at 
that.  And  divin'." 

' '  'T  wud  be  hard  to  bate  Jerry  at  that.  He  can 
go  aff  the  side  av  a  ship." 

"This  felly  can  go  aff  th'  yard-arm— Yis,  he  can 
do  that.  Oh  my,  he  is  wontherful,  McGee— he  is 
wontherful.  Why,  he  can  go  aff  th'-  ";  and  I 
did  n't  hear  no  more  of  that.  You  bet  I  wanted 
to  hear  all  they  would  say  about  that;  but  I 
could  n't  listen  hard  enough.  Just  when  I  would 
be  holding  my  breath  his  voice  would  go  and  I 
would  miss  maybe  the  principal  part.  The  fellow 
had  quit  his  job— I  made  that  out.  I  got  a  word 
here  and  there— and  when  I  put  it  all  together  it 
was  Clancy.  Leastways,  I  thought  it  was.  I  wanted 


CLANCY  BOBS  UP  AGAIN  383 

to  jump  right  out  through  that  hole  and  say— 
Where! 

But  I  could  ii 't  do  nothing  like  that;  they  was 
policemen.  Suppose  I  went  out  and  says,  "Would 
you  mind  telling  me  who  this  fellow  is?  Maybe  I 
am  looking  for  him"— that  would  n't  do.  Then 
they  would  have  me.  I  must  keep  away  from  them 
and  not  let  them  know  I  was  sleeping  here  nights, 
and  I  must  go  out  and  ask  them  about  what  they 
was  talking  about ;  that  's  the  way  it  looked  to  me. 
There  was  something  for  me  to  think  out.  But  I 
was  a  long  time  doing  it.  And  then  I  did  n't.  I 
would  start  at  the  beginning  and  look  it  over  both 
sides,  fair  and  square ;  and  just  when  I  would  come 
to  the  point  where  I  ought  to  know,  I  would  n't 
have  the  answer.  I  thought  I  would  be  willing  to 
take  the  risk  if  I  could  only  find  Clancy ;  but  there 
might  be  some  mistake.  I  knew  it  was  him,  but  I 
was  n't  sure.  And  then  I  would  be  arrested.  I 
tried  to  work  it  out  five  or  six  times  but  I  always 
had  to  start  over.  And  while  I  was  doing  it  the 
up-river  policeman  got  up  and  went  away. 

Then  the  other  policeman  got  up  and  stretched 
himself.  He  went  and  hit  on  a  tarpaulin  like  he 
thought  somebody  might  be  under  it.  I  laid  low. 
Next  I  heard  him  give  mine  a  rap.  He  come  along 
and  give  it  another  and  that  time  he  hit  right  over 
Rags.  Rags  got  mad  right  away;  he  got  up  and 
growled  and  barked  terrible.  Rags  was  so  used  to 
sleeping  there  he  thought  it  was  our  place  and  no 
body  did  n't  have  no  business  to  come  fooling 
around;  he  was  ready  to  eat  somebody  up.  And 


384  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

the  next  I  knew  the  cover  was  turned  back  and 
there  I  was  without  any  tarpaulin  over  me. 

"Well? "he  says. 

I  did  n't  say  nothing.    I  did  n't  know  what. 

* '  Yer  dog  is  a  good  watcher, ' '  he  says. 

' '  Yes,  sir, ' '  I  says. 

"What  are  ye  doin'  here?" 

"Nothin',"  I  says. 

"Have  ye  no  f rinds?     Come  now,"  he  says. 

"No,  sir,"  I  says. 

"Ye  have  none.  How  long  have  ye  been  here? 
Come  now, ' '  he  says. 

"Three  nights,"  I  says. 

"What  have  ye  been  livin'  on?  Come  now,"  he 
says. 

"I  did  n't  take  nothin'— only  some  molasses," 
I  says. 

"Oho— Ye  did,  did  ye?  D'  ye  know  I  cud  take 
ye  in  f'r  that?  I  cud  arrist  ye  for  larceny.  An' 
th'  judge  wud  be  like  to  make  it  MOlarseny.  D'  ye 
know  that?" 

' '  Yes,  sir, ' '  I  says. 

"D'  ye  know  ye  are  outside  th'  pale  av  th'  law?" 

"Yes,  sir,"  I  says. 

Rags  wanted  us  to  fight.  He  was  walking  around 
and  growling  inside  of  himself. 

"Come  on  over  here,"  he  says;  and  he  put  his 
hand  on  me.  And  when  he  done  that  Rags  jumped  in 
and  went  right  at  his  legs.  The  policeman  threw  his 
club  the  way  I  seen  him  practising ;  but  he  could  n't 
hit  Rags.  Rags  was  n't  so  slow  when  he  meant 
business.  He  dodged  away  and  growled  so  loud  I 


CLANCY  BOBS  UP  AGAIN  385 

guess  he  must  'a '  heard  it  himself ;  and  he  watched 
for  a  good  chance  to  come  back. 

1  i  Make  yer  dog  be  shtill ;  he  is  makin '  too  much 
noise. ' ' 

So  I  hollered  it  at  him  to  lay  down.  And  he 
done  it. 

1 '  D '  ye  have  to  call  like  that  to  make  him  mind  ? ' ' 

"Yes,  sir,"  I  says. 

"Come  over  now  till  I  take  a  look  at  ye,"  he 
says.  He  sat  down  on  a  barrel  and  let  me  stand 
in  front  of  him ;  and  he  made  me  answer  questions 
about  where  I  come  from  and  what  I  done.  He 
asked  the  questions  awful  quick  and  every  time  he 
said  "Come  now."  But  I  seen  why  he  did  that. 
He  did  n't  want  me  to  have  time  to  make  up  any 
thing. 

"So  ye  're  from  Missouri.  And  ye  are  goin'  to 
France.  I  suppose  ye  'd  go  up  in  a  balloon  too- 
only  ye  niver  thought  av  it.  An'  th'  boat  ye  be 
long  on  is  gone  away.  D'  ye  know  I  have  a  mind 
to  arrist  ye  for  that  ? ' ' 

"No,  sir,"  I  says. 

"What?    Ye  don't;  don't  ye?" 

"Yes,  sir,"  I  says. 

I  was  tired  hearing  myself  say  it.  Rags  he  was 
laying  low ;  but  he  could  n  't  stop  off  growling. 

' '  And  ye  have  no  f rinds  at  all  1 " 

"I  was  maybe  going  to  have  one  this  winter,"  I 
says.  So  then  I  seen  my  chance.  I  got  around  to 
asking  what  him  and  the  other  policeman  was  talk 
ing  about.  But  he  did  n't  know  nothing  about 
Clancy.  He  said  the  other  policeman  did  n't, 

25 


386  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

neither.  He  said  a  fellow  like  that  just  come  along 
one  time  to  go  swimming  and  he  made  himself  ac 
quainted  a  little.  So  then  I  knew  it  was  Clancy. 

"Mooney  wud  know  no  more  about  him.  He 
only  seen  him  th '  wanst, ' '  he  says.  ' '  Go  back  now 
and  get  into  yer  bed.  And  don't  let  me  see  ye 
doin'  it,  aither.  An'  don't  let  me  catch  ye  goin' 
to  France  agin.  D '  ye  mind  that  ? ' ' 

* '  Yes,  sir, ' '  I  says. 

' '  Go  back  and  get  in  it  now.  An '  whin  ye  're  in 
don't  let  me  know  ye  're  there." 

"Yes,  sir,"  I  says.  And  then  he  stood  where  he 
could  see  me  get  out  of  his  sight  and  went  away. 

I  guess  I  must  'a'  gone  to  sleep  again.  Because 
I  remember  hearing  somebody  call  to  me  five  or 
six  times  before  I  noticed  it.  When  I  come  to  and 
knew  it  I  heard  a  voice  at  the  little  hole. 

*  *  Are  ye  at  home  ? ' ' 

'  *  Yes,  sir, ' '  I  says. 

"Then  tell  your  dog  it  's  me.  An'  make  him 
kape  shtill."  And  then  he  threw  the  tarpaulin 
back  and  handed  me  a  big  sandwich. 

' '  Take  that  and  ate  it.  See  that  ye  do  it,  now. ' ' 
Then  he  stood  and  watched  me  to  see  that  I  done  it. 
You  bet  I  done  it;  I  guess  he  thought  I  was  awful 
good  at  minding. 

"I  have  asked  Mooney  about  th'  fellow." 

"Was  it  Clancy?"  I  says. 

"He  raymimbers  't  was  that  name  or  was  just 
like  it.  He  had  quit  his  job.  Him  and  th'  boss 
did  n't  get  along  together,  he  was  sayin'.  Mooney 
thinks  mabby  he  has  gone  up  North  to  work.  He 


Are  ye  at  home  ?  *  " 


388  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

was  talkin'  about  St.  Louis.  But  Mooney  did  n't 
see  him  but  th '  wanst. ' ' 

I  had  to  swallow  hard  on  the  last  bite  of  bread ; 
it  went  down  like  a  lump.  The  policeman  took 
hold  of  the  corner  of  the  canvas  again— and  he 
kept  his  eye  on  Rags.  "I  '11  now  be  puttin'  it 
back, ' '  he  says.  ' '  An '  don 't  ye  be  kickin '  th '  cover 
off  th'  cotton/'  And  he  threw  it  over  us  again. 

Well,  I  thinks  to  myself,  "What  else  would 
anybody  expect?  That  is  just  the  way.  Here  I 
come  twelve  hundred  miles  to  find  Clancy.  And 
just  when  I  am  going  to  find  him  again  he  is  gone. 
I  guess  he  has  struck  out  for  St.  Louis,  and  he  will 
be  going  to  the  Speed  to  see  Rags.  But  how  could 
I  'a '  knowed  that  ?  If  a  fellow  ever  had  as  much 
good  luck  as  he  has  bad  he  would  n  't  believe  it. ' ' 


CHAPTER  XXXI 


THE  TRAIL  LEADS  UPWARD 


DIDN'T  sleep  no  more ;  I  just 
/  laid  and  let  it  get  day 
light.  And  when  it  was 
commencing  to  light  up 
some  I  went  across  the 
levee  and  across  the  road 
and  sat  down  by  a  big 
brick  building.  George 
took  his  swim  and  I  had 
to  hold  Rags  back  because 
he  wanted  George  for 
breakfast;  and  while  he 
was  soaking  himself  I  made 

up  my  mind  what  to  do  next.  I  says  to  myself, 
"Look  a'  here,  Sam  Daly:  as  like  as  not  if  you  was 
up  in  St.  Louis  it  would  turn  out  that  there  was  a 
mistake  and  Clancy  had  n't  left  here  yet  at  all. 
That  's  just  about  the  way  it  would  be.  So  you 
better  get  the  best  of  it  while  you  have  a 
chance." 

That  looked  pretty  sensible  to  me.  Anyway,  I 
could  n't  get  away  from  here  till  the  Woodland 
come  back  so  I  might  as  well  put  in  the  time  look- 


390  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

ing  for  him ;  you  have  got  to  take  your  chances.  I 
wished  I  had  saved  my  sandwich  till  now. 

While  I  was  sitting  there  the  wide  doors  of  the 
brick  building  was  thrown  open  and  a  nigger 
quartette  come  and  took  their  places  before  the 
big  compress.  It  had  a  cylinder  like  a  steamship  — 
maybe  bigger.  The  steam  was  turned  on  and  it 
shoved  down  an  iron  plate  and  squeezed  a  whole 
wagon-load  of  cotton  so  many  sizes  smaller  you 
would  n  't  know  where  it  went  to ;  and  when  it  was 
a  bale  ready  to  put  the  bands  on  the  niggers  began 
to  hoop  her  up  and  sing.  All  together  they  put 
the  hoops  through  the  slot  and  brought  them  over 
and  bent  them  down  and  buckled  the  ends— there 
was  a  nigger  to  every  hoop  and  a  motion  to  every 
word— and  the  bale  was  finished  and  tumbled  off 
just  when  the  song  was  done.  The  big  cylinder 
sucked  the  plate  away  up  into  the  air  again  and 
come  down  on  another  load ;  and  they  all  started  in 
on  the  first  word  and  sung  off  another.  I  watched 
them  do  eighteen  or  twenty;  then  I  was  tired  of 
the  song. 

It  was  lightening  up  more  and  pretty  soon  the 
sun  was  turned  on  and  the  levee  was  started  up. 
There  was  niggers  tumbling  the  bales  around  with 
their  hooks,  and  barrels  a-rolling,  and  the  testers 
shoving  their  sticks  into  bung-holes,  and  mates 
a-cussing,  and  fruit  coming  ashore,  and  the  white 
stevedores  stuffing  the  ships— and  a  nigger  mammy 
come  and  sat  under  her  umbrella  and  started  to  sell 
goodies.  The  drays  was  coming  more  and  more 
and  turning  in  off  Canal  Street ;  they  had  two  and 


THE  TRAIL  LEADS  UPWARD  391 

three  mules  hitched  in  procession— which  I  guess 
is  the  best  way  to  get  through  crowded  places.  I 
could  n't  hardly  remember  that  a  little  while  ago 
it  was  all  quiet  and  only  me. 

It  was  getting  pretty  lively;  so  I  took  George 
and  put  him  back  again  and  I  went  to  the  foot  of 
Canal  Street.  And  there  they  was  a-coming— 
wagons  and  trucks  and  two-wheeled  drays  with 
their  tails  most  draggling  on  the  ground.  The 
main  channel  was  full  of  them— I  guess  Canal 
Street  is  the  Mississippi  of  that  town  and  the  other 
streets  was  emptying  into  it.  The  current  would 
divide  when  they  come  to  Henry  Clay  on  his  monu 
ment  and  the  loads  would  go  on  each  side  like  he 
was  an  island  in  the  street ;  then  they  would  come 
together  in  one  stream  again  and  keep  going  to 
where  Canal  Street  empties  into  the  Mississippi. 
That  street  would  choke  up  its  mouth  if  it  was  n't 
for  the  levee  stretching  along  the  river  to  hold  the 
cotton  and  molasses  and  fruit;  that  is  what  the 
levee  is  for. 

It  seemed  like  you  ought  to  be  able  to  find  most 
anybody  on  that  street  if  you  kept  looking;  so  I 
began  at  Number  one  and  started  up  it.  Them 
first  numbers  was  all  low-down  saloons;  the  lower 
the  number  was  the  worse  they  got.  I  went  into 
one  of  them  places.  The  reason  of  it  was  I  seen  a 
sign  that  said  "Free  Lunch."  So  I  did  n't  mind 
if  I  took  some.  There  was  men  in  there  which  was 
drunk  and  sleepy  from  the  night  before,  but  some 
was  beginning  to  wake  up  and  get  a  drink  again. 
There  was  some  sitting  round  like  rag  men  that 


392  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

sit  most  anyways  on  a  chair;  and  there  was  some 
standing  up  pretty  unsteady  with  their  hands  on 
the  railing  that  is  put  around  saloon  bars  to  keep 
yourself  from  falling.  And  they  was  all  holding 
to  it  like  it  was  a  ship  in  a  storm. 

The  free  lunch  it  was  on  the  corner  of  the  bar, 
but  when  I  got  good  and  started  I  found  it  was 
all  a  mistake;  it  was  only  free  to  them  that  spent 
money.  The  bartender  looked  at  me  and  told  me 
to  keep  hands  off,  so  I  done  it.  Back  of  the  saloon 
was  a  kind  of  a  yard  that  had  a  wall  around  it  and 
was  paved  with  brick ;  and  there  was  some  laying 
around  in  that  place,  too ;  they  was  all  ragged  and 
sour-smelling,  writh  their  faces  dirty  and  scratched. 
That  was  handy  for  the  saloon-keeper  when  he  had 
a  man  on  his  hands ;  he  could  put  him  back  there 
and  be  rid  of  him.  And  when  he  come  to  he  would 
be  glad  he  was  treated  right  and  not  put  out ;  then 
they  would  have  him  again. 

Upstairs  there  was  some  old  bare,  musty  rooms 
with  the  paper  peeling  off  the  walls ;  and  that  place 
was  good  at  night  or  when  it  was  raining.  And  if 
you  come  there  regular  to  get  drunk  you  could 
have  some  lunch  and  sleep  for  nothing,  unless  you 
had  ten  cents. 

There  was  a  fellow  in  pretty  good  black  clothes 
that  was  all  dirty;  he  was  sitting  stooped  on  a 
chair  making  motions  and  mumbling  to  himself.  I 
heard  a  fellow  telling  about  him  and  who  he  was. 
His  folks  was  well-off  and  was  a  good  family;  and 
he  had  money  every  month  that  was  his  share. 
His  folks  took  the  money  for  him  and  paid  the 


THE  TRAIL  LEADS  UPWARD  393 

saloon-keeper  in  advance.  You  see  he  was  n't  fit 
to  take  his  money  around  to  different  saloons;  so 
this  way  he  would  stay  in  a  place  that  suited  him 
and  not  go  around  getting  into  trouble  and  show 
ing  himself.  Once  he  was  a  clerk  in  a  bank,  but 
he  got  to  going  down  till  he  had  to  have  whiskey 
all  the  time  and  would  stay  drunk  anyways;  so 


Once  he  was  a  clerk  in  a  bank  " 


this  was  the  best  way.  They  would  n't  have  him 
sitting  around  like  that  in  decent  saloons,  anyhow ; 
so  his  folks  deposited  his  money  in  this  saloon  and 
then  he  could  stay  and  draw  his  whiskey  over  that 
bar.  That  way  his  folks  would  know  he  was  n't 
in  danger  carrying  money  and  was  out  of  harm 
in  a  place  that  suited  him.  That  was  a  pretty  good 
way.  Lots  of  folks  ought  to  do  it  on  contract  that 


394  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

way.  They  might  as  well  have  their  wages  just 
paid  to  the  saloon-keeper;  it  would  save  them  from 
troubling  with  the  money.  Besides,  it  would  go 
farther,  too. 

Some  ways  it  was  worse  than  a  pig-pen;  Rags 
did  n't  like  it  neither,  because  he  could  see  they 
was  n't  acting  sensible.  So  we  got  out  of  there; 
and  I  guessed  I  would  n't  go  into  any  of  them 
others.  More  had  come  into  the  barroom  and  was 
hanging  to  the  life-line.  The  bank  clerk  was  mak 
ing  foolish  motions  and  talking  crazy  stuff ;  I  guess 
he  thought  folks  was  listening  to  him. 

Most  of  the  little  stores  along  there  kept  lottery 
tickets  to  sell.  You  could  get  a  big  chance  for  five 
dollars  or  a  little  chance  for  two  bits,  which  is 
twenty-five  cents.  The  first  one  I  come  to  had  a 
sign  out  on  wrapping  paper  saying  that  this  was 
the  place  that  won  a  prize  in  the  last  drawing. 
There  was  a  couple  of  darkies  going  in  to  get  a 
ticket  in  the  week  drawing  for  two  bits,  and  there 
was  a  white  man  coming  out  with  a  ticket  in  the 
month  drawing,  and  there  was  customers  hanging 
around  outside  looking  at  the  lucky  number  in  the 
show  window  and  thinking  it  over.  Some  was 
showing  their  tickets  and  looking  at  them  and 
wondering  if  the  one  they  had  was  a  winner.  A 
steamboat  nigger  had  won  $100  last  week  and  he 
had  rigged  himself  up  in  clothes  that  would  make 
you  look;  I  guess  he  was  n't  going  to  work  no 
more.  He  was  talking  loud  and  bragging  how  he 
done  it. 

Next  I  come  to  one  that  had  a  sign  out  telling 


THE  TRAIL  LEADS  UPWARD  395 

about  how  they  won  a  thousand  dollars  for  a  cus 
tomer.  But  I  guess  they  did  n't  know  it  when 
they  sold  him  the  ticket.  There  was  a  lot  hang 
ing  around  and  going  in  and  out  of  that  place,  too, 
getting  bargains ;  I  found  out  some  did  n't  work  at 
nothing  else  except  when  they  was  busted.  Then 
they  would  have  to  work  some  to  win  twenty-five 
cents  for  a  new  start.  One  fellow  had  won  five 
dollars  and  he  did  n't  know  whether  he  had  better 
buy  a  big  chance  or  a  dozen  of  the  other  kind; 
but  he  spent  it  on  the  week  drawing  because  it 
come  quicker.  Another  was  going  to  buy  a  ten- 
dollar  chance  in  partners  with  his  friend,  and  they 
was  trying  to  guess  which  place  was  the  luckiest. 
They  went  into  the  place  that  had  won  the  biggest 
the  last  time. 

Then  I  come  to  another  that  did  n't  say  it  had 
won  anything,  but  just  advertised  that  it  was  going 
to  be  lucky.  You  could  buy  lottery  tickets  most 
anywheres  and  there  was  lots  that  had  bought 
tickets  hanging  around  and  talking  about  their 
investments ;  I  guess  they  thought  it  was  n  't  worth 
while  to  go  to  work  if  they  was  maybe  going  to  be 
rich.  They  was  just  standing  around  and  hoping. 

Well,  I  rambled  along  Canal  Street  and  went  off 
it,  sometimes  one  side  and  sometimes  the  other,  but 
I  always  steered  back  into  the  main  channel  again. 
There  was  old-looking  places  with  French-sound 
ing  signs  above  the  doors  and  sometimes  narrow 
streets  with  green  shutters  at  your  elbows.  After 
a  while  I  come  to  where  some  wide  stone  steps  led 
from  the  street  inside  of  a  building,  as  if  they 


396  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

expected  everybody  to  go  right  up  them ;  and  there 
was  no  sign  but  a  gold  Six  over  them,  as  if  every 
body  knew  what  it  was.  So  I  guessed  to  myself 
I  would  go  and  see.  Number  Six  was  a  fine  marble 
hall ;  I  never  seen  nothing  to  beat  it  except  maybe 
church,  and  there  was  gentlemen  playing  for 
money  all  over.  Anybody  could  just  step  right  in 
and  do  some  gambling.  After  a  while  I  come  to 
another  that  had  a  different  number  and  it  was 
the  same,  so  I  did  n't  try  no  more;  it  was  like 
everybody  kept  their  money  in  a  fine  bank  and 
then  played  cards  to  see  who  could  draw  it  out. 
Some  of  them  men  was  serious  and  respectable, 
like  bankers;  you  could  see  they  had  big  responsi 
bilities. 

The  more  I  got  away  from  the  levee  it  got  to  be 
more  respectable  drinkers  and  more  respectable 
gamblers.  I  bet  that  bank  clerk  that  I  seen  was 
a  high-toned  one  when  he  started.  But  he  did  n't 
have  enough  sense;  so  he  kept  going  down  till  he 
got  to  the  river  and  could  n't  go  no  farther. 

After  a  while  I  come  out  onto  Canal  Street  on  a 
corner  where  a  newsboy  was  chewing  a  one-cent 
joint  of  sugar-cane ;  he  had  spit  the  strings  of  it 
all  out  around  him  and  was  making  a  horse  jeal 
ous.  I  stood  and  talked  to  him  and  he  made  so 
much  noise  sucking  the  juice  and  chewing  it  out 
that  I  could  n't  think  of  nothing  else  but  eating. 
I  was  so  hungry  I  felt  lonesome.  I  could  n't  think 
of  no  place  where  it  seemed  I  wanted  to  go  but 
back  to  the  levee  where  I  had  the  sandwich,  it 
seemed  more  like  home;  so  I  went  back.  But  all 
the  time  I  was  keeping  my  eye  out  for  Clancy. 


THE  TRAIL  LEADS  UPWARD  397 

I  leaned  a  while  into  the  big  door  of  the  com 
press  again  and  watched  them  hooping  the  bales. 
They  was  doing  them  all  with  the  same  song  yet; 
I  would  think  they  ought  to  get  tired  singing  it 
for  so  many  thousands  of  them.  But  that  is  to 
keep  the  cotton  a-going  for  all  over  the  world; 
and  that  song  is  just  the  right  length  to  go  round  a 
bale  and  fasten  the  end,  and  it  fits  into  every  part 
of  the  work.  If  it  was  n't  that  it  belongs  to  the 
trade  I  guess  they  would  change  it.  But  a  song 
that  was  made  to  haul  a  rope  or  turn  a  capstan 
would  n't  put  no  bands  on  a  bale  of  cotton  and 
get  it  done  in  time.  I  got  so  I  was  n't  interested 
hearing  it  again  so  I  guessed  I  would  go  away 
from  it. 

I  called  Rags,  but  he  did  n't  come  along.  Then  I 
seen  that  he  had  come  across  an  old  throwed-away 
coat  on  the  edge  of  the  sidewalk  beside  a  paint 
bucket,  and  he  had  took  it  to  lay  down  on.  I  called 
him  again  but  he  did  n't  come;  I  thought  he  was 
getting  harder  of  hearing.  So  I  hollered  awful 
loud  and  that  time  I  seen  he  heard  me  by  the  end 
of  his  tail;  but  he  never  paid  no  more  attention. 
I  says  to  myself,  "He  thinks  all  clothes  has  got  to 
be  watched  whether  anybody  is  in  swimming  or 
not ;  Clancy  raised  him  that  way.  And  he  has  got 
so  a  coat  looks  like  home  to  him. ' ' 

When  he  would  n't  come  I  went  and  tried  to 
lead  him  by  the  ear.  But  he  held  back  and  just 
let  me  pull  it.  I  pulled  it  so  hard  I  could  feel  it 
hurt  him  and  had  to  stop ;  but  he  would  n  't  budge. 
I  guess  he  would  'a'  let  me  pull  it  off  and  just 
whine.  So  I  went  off  a  piece  and  took  George  out 


398 


PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 


and  called  him  a  nice  alligator,  and  then  you  bet 
Rags  pricked  up  his  ears  and  started  to  pay  atten 
tion.  And  he  come  right  away  to  see  about  it.  He 


"I  bet  he  would  'a'  bit" 


fooled  around  and  growled  till  I  put  George  back 
into  the  pocket  again.  And  then  what  does  Rags 
do  but  run  right  back  and  flop  down  on  the  coat 
again. 

I  went  then  and  slapped  him  on  the  short  hair 


THE  TRAIL  LEADS  UPWARD  399 

and  told  him  what  was  what;  and  I  pulled  his  ear 
good.  When  I  slapped  him  he  scrouched  down  and 
flattened  himself  like  it  was  something  awful  I 
was  going  to  do  to  him;  I  could  see  he  would  'a' 
done  anything  I  wanted  except  what  he  did  n't 
want  to.  There  was  n't  nothing  for  me  to  do 
but  drag  him  along ;  so  I  took  a-hold  of  both  of  his 
ears.  And  just  as  I  was  getting  the  best  of  him 
he  growled  and  got  savage  and  I  bet  he  would  'a' 
bit.  When  he  growled  like  he  meant  it  I  could  n't 
hardly  believe  what  I  heard.  He  had  turned  right 
into  a  different  dog. 

Well,  when  he  looked  different  and  growled  at 
me  like  that  I  let  go.  I  went  off  a  piece  and  tried 
to  make  him  out.  There  is  tramp  curs  that  will 
live  with  you  and  turn  on  you  that  way;  but  I 
never  thought  Rags  had  a  streak  in  him  like  that. 
Most  of  them  dogs  that  will  growl  at  their  boss 
is  cowards  with  everybody  else;  and  he  never  was 
that  way.  And  a  dog  that  is  awful  humble  at 
home  will  sometimes  go  out  and  whip  anything  on 
the  street;  and. that  is  the  kind  he  was.  So  I 
could  n't  make  him  out  at  all;  it  was  n't  natural. 
Anyways,  it  was  n't  dog  nature. 

I  thinks  to  myself,  I  will  show  you;  I  will  go 
away  as  if  I  did  n  't  care  a  cent.  So  I  started  and 
went  right  across  the  street  and  half  across  the 
levee.  And  when  I  looked  back  he  was  laying- 
there  resting  his  chin  on  the  sidewalk  as  contented 
as  could  be ;  he  was  looking  after  me  with  only  one 
eye  as  if  HE  did  n't  care  a  cent.  Well,  that  was 
too  much  for  me ;  I  could  n 't  make  it  out ;  it  did  n 't 


400  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

seem  dog  nature.  It  makes  you  feel  awful  bad 
when  your  dog  goes  back  on  you  like  that.  You  'd 
'a'  thought  he  decided  it  was  n't  worth  while  fol 
lowing  me  that  did  n't  belong  nowheres  and  was 
just  rambling  around.  I  come  to  a  stop ;  and  then 
when  I  tried  to  think  it  out  it  come  into  my  mind 
all  of  a  sudden— maybe  it  was  CLANCY'S  COAT. 
I  looked  this  way  and  that  and  all  around— but  I 
did  n't  see  no  Clancy. 

Then  I  looked  up.    And  there  he  was— anyways, 
I  bet  it  was  him. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 


OH-H-H  CLANCY! 


HERE  was  a  kind  of  a  swing 


, — s 


L  hooked  over  the  top   of  the 

T^¥  iron    chimney    of    the    com 

press  ;  and  somebody  was  sit 
ting  up  there  in  the 
swing  painting  black. 
Right  away  I  went 
over  to  the  building 
and  asked  which  was 
the  way  to  the  roof; 
and  I  was  hoping  it 
was  him.  I  inquired 
my  way  up  a  lot  of 
stairs  and  a  ladder 

and  come  out  on  top.    Then  I  looked  up  again  and 
seen  for  sure  it  was  him.    But  this  time  he  did  n't 
get  away.    You  see,  I  had  him  treed. 
"Oh,  Clancy!"  I  says. 

Well,  he  did  n't  know  me  at  first.  He  was  n't 
expecting  to  see  me  here ;  and  besides  he  had  never 
met  me  but  a  day.  So  when  I  told  him  I  was  Sam 
he  did  n't  do  nothing  but  look  down  and  wonder; 
he  called  everybody  Sam.  But  when  I  told  him  I 
had  Rags  down-stairs,  and  that  I  was  from  St. 


26 


401 


402  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 


"  'Oh,  Clancy!  '  I  says" 


Louis,  he  saw  right  away  it  was  me.  I  guess  he 
would  'a'  shook  hands  only  he  was  twenty  feet  up. 
But  he  looked  friendly ;  he  said  that  from  looking 
at  me  endways  he  did  n't  place  me  right  away  and 
he  would  n't  'a'  knowed  me  only  for  my  face;  but 


OH-H-H  CLANCY!  403 

he  said  he  would  meet  me  when  he  had  painted 
down  that  far. 

I  stood  on  the  roof  and  started  to  tell  him  how 
I  was  hunting  him  and  what  I  come  for.  He 
did  n't  pay  much  attention  at  first  but  kept  paint 
ing,  and  did  n't  seem  to  think  it  was  nothing  but 
me  talking.  But  when  he  commenced  to  see  it  was 
something  important  he  stopped  and  listened.  So 
I  hollered  up  to  him  all  about  Valdes  and  his  wife 
and  how  they  got  parted  and  lost  from  each  other 
and  the  whole  business.  He  did  n't  exactly  under 
stand  what  it  was  all  about  or  what  he  had  to  do 
with  it;  he  started  to  painting  again  as  if  I  had 
just  a  fool  notion  about  nothing.  But  when  I  hol 
lered  up  about  the  bore-hole  he  seen  there  might 
be  some  sense  to  it,  'specially  the  five  hundred 
dollars;  he  listened  close  and  stopped  chewing  so 
he  could  think.  And  then  I  told  him  how  many 
meals  I  was  behind.  When  he  heard  about  that  he 
took  out  a  quarter  and  dropped  it  down.  That 
quarter  fell  on  the  roof  as  if  it  was  a  dollar;  it 
was  like  getting  money  from  heaven.  I  did  n't 
stop  to  tell  him  no  more.  And  when  I  was  going 
he  hollered  after  me  to  come  back  at  noon. 

I  went  and  got  into  a  stall  and  made  them  wait 
on  me  a  whole  twenty-five  cents  worth.  I  was 
through  in  a  little  while— the  waiter  looked  at  the 
plate  when  I  come  out  and  said  it  was  a  pretty 
quick,  clean  job  of  eating— and  then  I  went  back 
to  the  compress.  When  I  got  to  the  big  doors  I 
met  Clancy  with  Rags  jumping  up  against  him. 
He  was  just  going  to  dinner  and  he  asked  me  to 


404  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

come  along;  so  I  said  all  right.  I  told  him  I  just 
had  one  dinner  but  I  did  n't  mind  if  I  took  an 
other.  And  he  said  that  was  all  right;  eating 
would  n't  hurt  nobody  if  they  did  n't  begin  too 
young.  So  I  went. 

He  picked  up  his  corduroy  coat  and  put  it  on 
his  arm  and  said  he  guessed  we  better  go  to  the 
same  place  I  ate.  Clancy  never  cared  much  for 
coats  except  just  to  have  one;  he  was  so  used  to 
working  out  in  his  shirt-sleeves  that  he  just  took 
it  on  his  arm  instead  of  an  umbrella  if  it  rained. 
Between  times  it  was  mostly  good  for  Rags  to 
watch.  While  we  was  going  over  I  showed  him  the 
alligator  and  told  him  the  main  part  of  the  other 
things ;  and  he  said  that  finding  the  wife  of  Valdes 
would  n't  be  hard  if  she  was  the  one  he  knew 
about ;  she  lived  right  near  there.  Anyway,  we  would 
go  that  night  and  see  if  she  meant  the  same  bore 
hole  ;  maybe  she  did  and  then  it  would  be  her. 

When  we  got  to  the  market  I  could  n't  tell  him 
no  more  about  things  on  account  of  the  marble 
slab  being  between  our  two  eating-places.  Rags 
went  in  his  and  sat  under  him.  I  took  more  time 
to  taste  what  I  was  eating  this  time,  but  I  got 
through  first,  and  then  when  Clancy  was  through 
he  had  to  go  right  back  to  work.  He  said  he  had 
took  the  painting  on  contract  and  so  he  wanted  to 
make  a  good  job  of  it ;  it  was  n  't  like  working  for 
somebody  else  that  is  running  the  job.  So  on  ac 
counts  of  him  not  having  any  boss  he  had  to  hurry 
right  back  and  not  be  killing  time. 

That  afternoon  I  just  sat  around  on  the  levee 


OH-H-H  CLANCY!  405 

and  felt  pretty  comfortable  and  settled  down  with 
the  two  dinners  inside  of  me;  I  staid  around  the 
cotton  bales  or  the  fruit  piles  and  watched  them 
working  wherever  I  pleased.  Rags  he  staid  and 
watched  the  coat.  I  could  go  a  block  or  two  away 
and  see  Clancy  just  the  same.  Once  in  a  while  I 
would  look  and  see  how  far  he  had  moved  down; 
he  was  like  a  clock  in  a  steeple. 

Late  that  afternoon  he  had  the  chimney  like  a 
new-shined  boot,  so  he  come  down  and  took  me 
home  where  his  room  was.  We  went  a  few  squares 
and  turned  into  a  door  on  Canal  Street  and  up 
some  stairs  to  a  hall  with  oil-cloth  on  it;  then  he 
unlocked  the  door  and  threw  his  coat  on  a  chair 
and  Rags  got  up  on  it.  So  I  had  to  sit  on  the  bed. 
But  Clancy  poured  some  water  out  of  the  pitcher 
and  washed  up. 

The  bed  had  a  pink  business  overhead  like  a 
square  umbrella ;  it  made  you  remember  when  you 
used  to  sleep  in  a  buggy.  It  was  made  out  of  some 
silky  stuff  that  was  all  puckered  toward  each  other 
and  exploded  out  from  a  button  in  the  middle;  it 
looked  like  it  was  pretty  high-toned  for  Clancy. 
But  he  said  it  was  n't;  he  asked  if  I  had  n't 
took  notice  that  all  the  beds  down  there  was  like 
that.  I  had  n't  seen  no  bed  since  I  come  there. 
So  how  could  I  notice  it  ?  He  said  it  was  n  't  noth 
ing  ;  they  had  them  canopies  whether  the  beds  was 
good  or  not ;  and  his  was  pretty  bad.  He  could  n 't 
sleep  comfortable  in  it.  The  fellow  that  was  there 
before  him  was  a  steady  boarder  that  always  laid 
the  same  way,  and  his  shape  did  n't  fit  Clancy. 


406  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

He  said  you  would  n't  know  it  to  look  at  it— it 
only  sagged  a  little  in  the  middle;  but  after  you 
got  in  you  could  feel  that  it  was  the  other  fellow's 
shape.  It  would  n't  give  him  no  rest  unless  he 
doubled  his  legs  up  the  same  way;  and  he  did  n't 
like  that  way  if  he  was  taking  first  choice.  But 
he  had  n't  put  in  any  complaints  about  it  because 
the  woman  was  doing  the  best  she  could  and  was 
trying  to  get  a  living.  He  said  he  would  'a'  put 
in  a  kick  and  left  if  it  was  n't  for  that;  she  was  a 
mighty  square  old  lady. 

That  place  used  to  have  a  ghost,  too.  But  that 
was  away  back  when  it  used  to  be  a  private  resi 
dence.  Clancy  said  that  after  it  was  turned  into  a 
boarding-house  the  ghost  left.  He  said  he  did  n't 
blame  it  none;  if  he  was  a  ghost  he  would  move 
into  a  family,  too.  He  said  if  he  ever  got  that  five 
hundred  for  finding  the  woman  he  would  go  home 
and  visit  his  mother  a  while  like  she  wanted  him  to ; 
he  was  getting  tired  of  sleeping  after  other  people 
all  the  time.  There  ain't  no  place  like  home  where 
things  is  used  to  you.  It  was  a  pretty  narrow  bed, 
so  I  got  to  thinking  that  maybe  I  would  make  it 
uncomfortable  sleeping  in  it  too,  but  he  said  not  to 
worry  about  that. 

"That  don't  make  any  difference,"  he  says.  "I 
have  to  sleep  to  one  side,  anyways ;  I  quit  trying 
to  use  the  whole  bed.  We  can  each  sleep  on  the 
outside  and  let  the  other  guy  HAVE  the  middle  if 
he  wants  it."  You  'd  'a'  thought  from  what  he 
said  the  boarder  that  died  was  a  ghost,  too.  Clancy 
said  he  died ;  that  was  how  he  come  to  stop  board 
ing  there. 


OH-H-H  CLANCY!  407 

When  he  had  his  face  washed  he  lit  the  kerosene 
lamp  and  set  it  on  the  little  stand  and  set  down 
beside  me  on  the  bed ;  then  he  said  for  me  to  start 
in  and  tell  him  the  whole  business  just  like  it  was. 
So  I  done  it.  I  told  him  everything.  And  what  he 
did  n  't  know  about  he  thought  to  ask.  He  could  n  't 
exactly  understand  how  Valdes  let  himself  get  sepa 
rated  from  his  wife  that  way;  he  wanted  to  know 
why  he  did  n't  do  this  and  why  he  did  n't  do 
that  till  he  got  me  tangled.  Then  he  said  it  looked 
pretty  complicated. 

"All  I  know  is  that  them  things  happened  that 
way  and  they  got  apart.  If  things  did  n't  do  that 
way  sometimes  there  would  n't  never  BE  no  mix- 
ups,"  I  says. 

"Eight  you  are,"  he  says;  and  then  he  did  n't 
ask  me  no  more  that  I  could  n't  answer. 

What  he  wanted  to  know  mostly  was  about  the 
woman.  So  I  thought  up  all  about  her ;  I  even  got 
down  to  telling  about  the  toy  house  she  made  for 
the  nigger  boy  and  the  grape-vine  picture-frames 
and  how  she  kept  waiting  for  Valdes  and  thinking 
everything  would  turn  out  all  right. 

"It  looks  to  me,"  he  says,  "as  if  she  was  a 
pretty  square  lady." 

After  that  he  did  n't  seem  to  be  much  interested 
in  Valdes— except  that  he  had  so  much  money. 
It  did  n 't  look  right,  he  said,  for  a  man  to  be  going 
around  as  if  it  was  Saturday  night  all  the  time  and 
his  wife  not  getting  a  dollar  of  it.  But  I  told  him 
Valdes  would  give  her  plenty  if  he  found  her. 
"That  valise  was  only  his  pocket-book,"  I  says. 


408  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

1 '  His  main  money  was  in  the  bank  and  places.  He 
says  to  me  that  he  only  brought  that  along  to  give 
her.  His  name  was  good  for  money  anywheres ;  I 
guess  he  could  'a'  wrote  her  a  check." 

' '  Check  nothin ', ' '  says  Clancy.  ' '  That  would  n  't 
be  no  way  for  a  man  to  come  back.  I  would  bring 
back  a  trunkful  of  the  real  goods.  Would  I  write 
my  old  lady  a  check  like  I  was  paying  her  off  ?— I 
should  say  not.  I  'd  open  the  lid  and  tell  her  to 
help  herself.  What  good  is  a  check  to  a  woman 
that  can't  go  into  a  saloon  and  drink  enough  to 
get  it  cashed?  I  can  see  how  that  Valdes  had  it 
figured  out  all  right.  We  '11  have  to  try  and  put 
him  in  line  with  her." 

' '  Do  you  think  it  is  the  same  woman  you  knew  ? ' ' 
I  says. 

"I  did  n't  really  know  her,"  he  says.  "She 
kind  of  took  a  liking  to  me,  but  when  I  had  roomed 
there  three  days  I  got  a  job  in  Tennessee ;  that  's 
when  I  went  to  work  on  the  viaduct.  But  the  little 
girl  I  seen  was  about  seventeen  or  twenty— if  she 
was  the  same  one  you  're  talking  about. ' ' 

"Of  course,"  I  says.  "That's  on  accounts  of  it 
being  so  much  time  since  Valdes  went  away.  She 
would  have  to  get  old  since,  would  n't  she?" 

"Correct,"  he  says.  He  got  right  up  and 
changed  his  shirt  and  put  on  his  other  clothes. 
Clancy  had  a  mighty  good  black  suit  when  he 
wanted  to  go  and  see  anybody.  It  was  a  fine 
smooth  basket-work  kind  of  cloth;  and  he  looked 
all  dressed-up  in  it.  He  put  on  his  stiff  hat  and 
spit  out  his  chew  and  says,  "Come  along." 


OH-H-H  CLANCY!  409 

We  went  up  the  street  in  the  direction  away 
from  the  river.  There  was  a  lot  of  people  out 
walking  by  gas-light  and  some  looking  into  the 
lit-up  windows  at  bedroom  sets  and  things.  But 
Clancy  looked  as  good  as  any  of  them  and  I  told 
him  his  suit  was  fine. 

"This  here  is  an  imported  suit,"  he  says;  "I 
took  it  over  to  England  and  I  brought  it  back 
again. ' ' 

He  showed  them  English  some  things  that  they 
won't  forget;  and  while  he  was  walking  along  he 
told  me  how  it  happened.  You  see  the  way  it  hap 
pened  was  this.  Since  I  seen  him  last  Clancy 
worked  his  way  over  to  England  firing  the  boilers 
on  a  steamship— they  called  him  a  stoker.  It  was 
too  warm  to  wear  many  clothes  at  that  job,  and 
afterwards  he  felt  he  had  swum  across  in  his  own 
sweat.  He  did  n't  see  no  ocean  scenery  going  over 
on  accounts  of  being  two  or  three  stories  down  in 
the  basement  of  the  ship ;  he  just  staid  down  there 
and  kept  on  stoking  and  after  a  while  the  whistle 
blew  for  England.  England  is  an  island.  I  never 
knew  that  before ;  I  always  thought  it  was  a  coun 
try.  As  soon  as  they  made  the  landing  Clancy 
come  up  out  of  the  stoke-hole  and  quit  his  job; 
then  he  washed  his  face  and  put  on  his  clothes  and 
stepped  off  onto  England.  When  he  had  looked 
around  a  little  he  guessed  he  would  stay  a  while, 
so  he  went  around  to  different  iron-working  places 
— and  asked  for  a  job.  They  did  n't  seem  to  need 
him.  At  one  place  they  was  short  a  man  and 
Clancy  said  he  would  take  it  at  the  regular  wages 


410  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

whatever  they  called  it  in  their  money;  but  he 
did  n't  get  it.  Everywhere  he  went  it  was  the 
same.  The  boss  would  come  out  for  a  minute  and 
then  go  away  and  leave  Clancy  standing  as  if  he 
was  n't  interested  in  him.  One  boss  said  he  needed 
a  man  but  he  guessed  Clancy  could  n't  do  that  kind 
of  work;  he  did  n't  say  why.  Clancy  told  him  to 
be  a  sport  and  take  a  chance  on  him;  but  he 
would  n't.  Every  place  Clancy  went  they  acted 
as  if  it  was  a  mistake  and  he  had  called  at  the 
wrong  place. 

That  was  a  new  one  on  Clancy;  he  could  n't 
understand  what  was  the  matter.  Clancy  could  al 
ways  brace  into  the  office  and  put  on  a  front  that 
would  land  him  a  job  most  every  time;  and  after 
wards  he  would  pitch  in  and  hold  it  too.  But 
over  there  he  did  n't  seem  to  know  the  combina 
tion.  He  pretty  near  wore  his  heels  off  and  did  n't 
strike  nothing.  Between  times  he  went  around 
and  looked  at  all  the  curiosities  and  the  places 
that  used  to  be  important;  and  he  mixed  up  with 
the  other  fellows  that  was  out  of  a  job.  But  he 
did  n't  take  much  to  them  ;  they  was  just  emigrants 
that  had  n  't  come  over  yet. 

One  day  he  was  in  a  tavern  saloon  talking  to  the 
bar-lady  and  telling  her  the  saloons  over  there 
ought  to  take  ice  and  learn  the  business ;  and  while 
he  was  talking  about  America  a  fellow  that  was 
sitting  at  a  table  got  right  up  and  hit  him  on  the 
back  and  called  him  partner.  The  fellow  was  from 
Passaic  Falls.  He  was  over  there  working  on  a  big 
smoke-stack.  Clancy  and  him  bought  each  other 


OH-H-H  CLANCY!  411 

a  drink  and  then  Clancy  asked  him  what  was  the 
matter  with  things  over  there. 

"You  won't  never  get  a  job  if  you  go  around 
this  way,"  the  fellow  says.  "Get  yourself  a 
leather  apron— I  '11  lend  you  one." 

"And  go  around  the  street  in  it?"  says  Clancy. 

"Go  right  there  in  it— and  a  loppy  old  cap  and 
a  pipe  and  things.  Try  it  and  see  the  difference. 
You  don't  look  like  you  belonged  in  your  class." 

Well,  Clancy  tumbled  right  away. 

"I  'm  dead  next,"  he  says.  "You  've  got  to  be 
a  boiler  maker  or  a  blacksmith  all  the  time  over 
here.  It  's  my  lightning-change  act  they  can't 
stand  for.  I  see. ' ' 

Clancy  went  and  got  his  candle-end  right  back 
from  the  bar-lady.  He  had  already  paid  for  it; 
they  had  it  down  on  the  bill  separate  and  when 
Clancy  seen  that  he  gave  her  the  stump  of  it  for  a 
present  seeing  it  was  so  valuable.  So  he  asked  her 
to  give  it  back  again  and  he  went  up  to  his  room. 
He  made  up  his  mind  he  would  do  anything  to 
get  a  job  if  he  quit  it  the  next  day;  he  did  n't  like 
to  let  a  country  turn  him  down  that  way.  He  lit 
the  candle  and  smoked  his  face  with  it  till  he  looked 
like  it  had  been  worked  into  his  hide  for  months  at 
a  time ;  and  he  put  some  extra  finger  marks  on  his 
nose  and  the  side  of  his  jaw.  The  New  Jersey 
fellow  got  him  the  other  things  and  made  him  up 
like  one  of  his  class.  Clancy  handled  himself  some 
more  with  his  smoky  hands  and  when  he  looked  in 
the  glass  he  could  see  himself  away  down  at  the 
foot  of  his  class. 


412  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

"Now  you  go  and  make  a  try,"  says  the  New 
Jersey  fellow. 

So  Clancy  done  it.  He  went  right  back  to  the 
place  where  they  would  n't  listen  to  him  and  got 


"  «Go  and  make  a  try 


the  job  right  away.    The  boss  did  n't  know  it  was 
him.     He  made  up  his  mind  he  would  show  them 
a  thing  or  two  and  then  tell  them  something. 
Things    turned    out   better   than   he    expected. 


OH-H-H  CLANCY!  413 

Clancy's  job  was  to  tend  to  the  tools  in  a  shop 
where  they  worked  piece-work.  The  more  work 
the  men  did  the  more  they  got,  and  the  less  they 
did  the  less  they  got.  Clancy  kept  the  tools  so 
good  all  the  time  that  their  wages  started  to  go  up. 
When  he  seen  that  he  just  dug  in  and  kept  them 
better.  He  knew  how  to  sharpen  a  scraper  so  that 
it  would  take  off  the  iron  twice  as  quick  as  they 
was  used  to  and  easier ;  he  done  things  the  best  he 
could  all  the  time.  It  was  like  Clancy  had  come  in 
and  give  them  all  a  raise  in  wages.  They  all  said 
he  was  the  best  they  ever  had ;  and  the  boss  knew 
it,  too. 

When  the  time  come  for  him  to  quit  he  went 
around  and  bid  them  all  good-bye.  When  they 
found  he  meant  it  they  all  got  together  and  decided 
what  they  would  do.  They  decided  they  would 
each  chip  in  a  penny  a  day  out  of  their  own  pock 
ets;  they  could  afford  to  do  it  better  than  to  have 
their  wages  go  down.  That  would  'a '  put  his  wages 
away  up  to  more  than  any  boss  would  'a'  paid.  No 
boss  would  'a' thought  he  was  worth  it.  But  they  did. 
When  he  seen  they  was  so  square  he  hated  to  go 
and  quit  them;  but  he  did  n't  want  to  stay  there 
in  that  country  all  the  time,  anyway,  and  he  told 
them  .so.  They  asked  him  to  think  it  over  and 
they  would  send  the  committee  around  to  him. 
But  when  the  committee  come  he  told  them  just 
how  it  was.  "Well,  gents,"  he  says,  "I  hate  to 
make  a  cut  in  your  wages  but  I  have  got  to  do  it. 
It  's  really  the  fellow  in  the  office  that  I  hired  out 
to,  and  I  have  been  looking  forward  to  quitting 


414  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

him.  If  it  was  n't  for  that  I  would  stay.  But  I 
am  going  to  quit;  I  am  going  to  tell  the  boss  I 
don't  like  the  cut  of  his  whiskers  and  that  I  can't 
work  for  him ;  then  I  am  going  to  blow  for  the  old 
U.  S." 

So  he  done  it.  He  went  home  first  and  dressed 
all  up  just  to  come  back  and  do  it.  The  boss 
did  n't  know  him  again;  he  had  to  introduce  him 
self  before  he  could  quit.  You  see  Clancy  had 
took  a  shave  and  reached  his  hair;  and  he  had  put 
on  a  buttonhole  bouquet,  and  a  little  bendy  cane 
that  was  only  good  to  point  at  the  sights  with,  and 
a  silk  handkerchief  that  stuck  out  of  the  corner  of 
his  pocket— he  slicked  up  to  beat  the  band.  He 
got  a  cigarette  too  and  stuck  it  on  his  lower  lip  so 
that  it  hung  down  careless-like ;  so  when  he  shoved 
his  head  and  elbows  into  the  money-window  and 
rested  himself  on  the  shelf  and  said  it  was  pretty 
medium  weather  outside,  but  kind  of  foggy,  the 
boss  did  n  't  know  who  he  was ;  he  thought,  it  was 
somebody  come  to  give  a  big  order.  The  boss  got 
right  up  and  smiled  and  flunkied;  Clancy  shook 
hands  and  said  how  he  regretted  that  he  would 
have  to  bust  the  relations  between  them  and  be 
hands  across  the  sea.  The  boss  did  n't  get  onto 
his  line  of  talk  right  away.  When  he  tumbled  he 
set  his  eyes  and  crawled  back  into  himself  and  put 
his  politeness  in  cold  storage  again ;  but  that  did  n't 
faze  Clancy  none.  He  leaned  in  farther  and  rested 
himself  on  the  shelf  and  did  n't  seem  to  notice  it. 
He  talked  so  high-toned  he  froze  the  boss  stiff  and 
then  he  threw  out  the  hot  air  till  he  thawed  him 


OH-H-H  CLANCY!  415 

out  again;  I  guess  he  must  'a'  piled  it  on  consid 
erable.  I  can't  remember  all  he  said.  He  reached 
in  again  to  shake  hands  and  told  the  boss  that  if  he 
ever  come  over  to  America  not  to  forget  to  look 
him  up  and  come  and  see  him.  Then  the  boss 
gave  him  his  money  and  told  him  he  better  go; 
but  Clancy  said  he  was  n't  in  no  hurry,  he  just 
come  to  say  good-bye  and  settle  up  the  little  ac 
count.  After  a  while  the  boss  kind  of  understood ; 
and  then  he  said  if  Clancy  did  n't  go  he  would 
send  for  a  bobby  and  have  him  put  on  the  street. 
Clancy  said  he  never  heard  such  talk  and  he  did  n't 
understand  it;  so  then  he  leaned  in  farther  and 
got  interested  and  staid  to  talk  it  over.  Clancy 
told  me  he  would  n't  'a'  got  out  of  there  on  that 
kind  of  an  invitation  if  he  had  to  send  the  wagon 
for  the  Ambassador.  I  guess  after  a  while  the 
boss  made  up  his  mind  that  people  in  America  was 
raised  that  way  and  did  n't  know  no  better;  any 
ways  he  give  up  to  shake  hands  again  and  Clancy 
rubbed  it  in  pretty  polite. 

Clancy  told  me  all  about  it  while  we  was  going 
along.  He  ain't  ever  going  back  there  again. 
"Them  foreign  countries  is  all  right,"  he  says,  "if 
you  are  brought  up  in  your  class.  But  it  ain't  no 
good  for  boiler  makers.  After  this  I  am  going  to 
stay  right  in  the  U.  S." 

We  turned  to  the  left  and  went  up  a  different 
kind  of  a  street  where  there  was  commoner  stores  and 
fish  markets  and  oyster  places  and  such ;  and  I  went 
along  watching  the  places  and  counting  up  the 
numbers  of  the  houses,  but  I  had  to  skip  one  place ; 


416  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

it  was  the  end  of  the  canal  which  did  n't  have  no 
number.  The  canal  had  come  to  the  street  and 
could  n't  go  no  farther;  and  so  it  had  to  stop 
right  in  line  with  the  houses ;  and  a  ship  had  come 
to  the  end  of  the  canal  and  could  n  't  go  no  farther, 
either,  but  it  had  poked  its  nose  out  over  the  street 
as  far  as  it  could  go  and  pointed  with  its  bowsprit 
up  at  the  second  story  of  a  house  across  the  street. 
Horses  and  people  could  go  under  it,  so  it  was  n't 
in  the  way  none.  But  there  would  'a '  been  a  num 
ber  to  spare  for  the  ship  if  it  had  wanted  to  'a' 
staid  there  like  a  house  and  kept  it.  Well,  just  as 
we  got  under  the  bowsprit  Clancy  come  to  a  stop. 
We  stopped  too  and  waited  for  him  to  think  what 
it  was  he  had  forgotten;  but  he  did  n't  say  noth 
ing.  Then  he  sat  down  on  the  edge  of  the  canal 
and  started  to  look  at  the  water  and  think  hard 
like  he  was  fishing. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 


ON  THE  TRAIL  OF  A  LADY 


ND  after  he  sat  down  he 
pulled  his  plug  and  bit  off 
a  chew.  Rags  sat  down 
and  waited  for  him  to  get 
through  thinking.  But  I 
did  n't  sit  down;  I  was 
kind  of  interested  in  the 
ship.  So  I  went  close 
where  I  could  touch  it;  I 
could  make  the  ship  wag 
gle  its  cutwater  chain 
back  and  forth  like  the 
dewlap  of  a  cow. 

"The  lady  must  n't  know  anything  about  this 
business,"  said  Clancy. 

"What!"  I  says.  "Not  know  anything  about 
her  husband?" 

"That  's  it,"  he  says.  "So  watch  out  that  you 
don 't  make  a  mistake  and  let  it  out. ' ' 

Well,  I  was  surprised  at  such  talk;  I  did  n't 
think  that  of  Clancy. 

"Pshaw,"  I  says.  "What  sense  would  there  be 
in  that?  What  was  the  use  of  Valdes  coming 
across  me,  and  me  a-hunting  up  you,  and  us  a-going 

27  417 


418  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

to  see  her,  if  we  ain't  going  to  let  her  know  about 
it." 

"What  's  the  sense  in  telling  her?  Don't  you  do 
anything  of  the  kind,"  he  says.  "That  ain't 
no  way  to  do  with  a  woman.  It  '11  only  start  her 
up  and  excite  her  and  keep  her  worrying.  We 
tell  her  about  it.  And  then— 'Where  's  Valdes?' 
'Don't  know.'  That  would  n't  be  treating  her 
square.  She  done  her  worrying  a  long  time  ago 
on  this  here  same  subject.  And  she  ought  to  be 
let  alone  now  that  she  is  settled  down  to  it.  We  'd 
only  set  her  back  to  where  she  was  years  ago. 
She  's  got  him  dead ;  so  let  him  stay  dead.  So  don 't 
go  butting  in  just  to  start  a  surprise  and  make 
yourself  important.  This  business  is  up  to  us. 
And  we  don't  want  to  start  a  woman  up  with  any 
hopes  like  that  till  we  can  produce  the  goods." 

"What  goods?"  I  says. 

"Valdes,"  he  says. 

"Not  even  that  he  is  alive  and  they  are  all  rich 
and-" 

"Naw,"  he  says.  "If  he  did  n't  turn  up  for  a 
long  time  it  's  better  not  to  have  her  worrying 
about  it.  Leave  her  alone.  She  won't  know  any 
more  than  we  tell  her.  And  we  don 't  know  enough 

yet." 

Well,  that  began  to  look  like  sense  to  me.  Women 
is  that  way. 

"She  would  n't  know  what  to  do  about  it  any 
more  than  us ;  would  she,  Clancy  ? ' ' 

"She  has  n't  got  a  picayune  to  rub  against  an 
other.  She  could  n't  travel  around  and  hunt  him 


ON  THE  TRAIL  OF  A  LADY  419 

up.  And,  besides,  it  ain't  no  use  when  she  has  got 
us.  This  business  is  up  to  us.  So  don't  forget  it." 

' '  I  won 't  say  nothing, ' '  I  says. 

"Besides  that,"  he  says,  getting  up  and  throw 
ing  his  chew  into  the  canal,  "if  Valdes  has  given 
us  the  job  of  finding  him  we  are  going  to  take  it. 
And  we  are  going  to  do  it  right.  That  five  hun 
dred  would  make  my  old  lady's  eyes  water.  A 
hundred  would  be  about  the  right  size  for  me  to 
blow  in.  That  's  all  of  it  that  I  want." 

So  he  made  it  up  that  we  was  going  to  see  if  she 
had  a  room  that  suited  us.  And  then  he  went 
ahead. 

After  a  while  we  went  to  the  left  and  passed 
the  Lee  monument  and  turned  some  more  and  come 
to  a  row  of  brick  houses  that  had  porches  all  cov 
ered  with  green  lath  work  like  chicken  coops  around 
every  story.  Clancy  knocked. 

First  he  did  n't  do  it  loud  enough;  so  then  he 
tapped  like  he  was  putting  a  head  on  a  rivet.  A 
woman  come  and  let  the  door  open  just  enough  to 
get  her  nose  out  and  see  with  one  eye.  She  did  n't 
know  nothing  about  Mrs.  Valdes  and  her  daughter. 
She  said  she  never  heard  of  them  or  knew  any 
body  that  might  be;  and  she  wanted  to  know  was 
Clancy  a  collector. 

"  Do  I  look  it  1 "  he  says,  and  he  give  her  a  wink. 
After  he  had  talked  a  little  and  she  seen  the  kind 
he  was  she  opened  right  up.  She  said  two  or  three 
tenants  had  come  and  gone  in  a  year  or  two;  the 
landlord  was  no  good  and  would  n't  fix  nothing. 
She  said  she  was  going  to  move  herself.  And 


420  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

Clancy  said  it  was  a  good  thing  that  we  come  when 
we  did. 

"If  we  had  put  it  off  then  YOU  would  'a'  been 
gone,"  he  says.  "And  then  we  could  n't  'a'  found 
out  nothing. ' ' 

When  he  spoke  like  that  she  leaned  up  against 
the  side  of  the  door  and  was  friendly ;  and  she  told 
us  just  how  it  was.  The  blower  of  the  grate  was 
busted  and  the  landlord  would  n't  get  another 
even  when  the  damp  rainy  season  was  here.  Clancy 
said  that  some  kinds  of  cold  is  a  good  deal  chillier 
than  other  kinds  of  cold  and  he  'd  be  blamed  if 
he  'd  live  in  the  rainy  season  where  the  grate 
did  n't  have  no  blower.  She  said  the  only  way 
she  could  get  the  grate  to  draw  at  all  was  to  hold 
the  lid  of  the  wash-boiler  against  it,  and  that 
did  n't  work  very  good  either;  and  Clancy  said 
them  kind  of  landlords  ought  to  be  brought  to 
time.  So  when  she  seen  the  kind  Clancy  was,  and 
found  he  was  friends  of  the  other  people  that  had 
got  the  worst  of  it,  she  went  around  to  the  neigh 
bors  to  see  if  they  knew  what  he  wanted  to  find  out. 
She  done  everything  for  Clancy.  But  none  of 
them  knew. 

"Why  don't  you  go  up  to  the  grocery  store?" 
she  says.  "Maybe  he  has  kept  track  of  them." 

Clancy  said  that  was  the  best  idea  yet;  so  he 
bid  her  good-bye  and  went.  But  the  grocer  had  n't 
kept  track;  they  did  n't  owe  him  nothing,  so  they 
was  n't  important  to  him.  We  could  n't  get  trace 
of  the  expressman  either  or  his  number;  the  gro- 
ceryman  had  n't  took  it.  He  said  he  would  V 


ON  THE  TRAIL  OF  A  LADY  421 

took  it  only  they  lived  pretty  skimpy  and  did  n't 
eat  beyond  their  means;  all  he  remembered  was 
that  there  was  a  woman  and  her  daughter  that 
kept  pretty  much  to  themselves  and  rented  rooms. 
So  we  went  back  to  the  house  and  looked  up  at  the 
green  lathwork  a  while ;  but  that  did  n't  do  no  good. 

"Well,  they  have  flew  the  coop,"  Clancy  says; 
and  he  looked  pretty  disgusted.  He  turned  and 
went;  and  me  and  Bags  went  along.  He  did  n't 
say  nothing  at  first.  Then  he  would  speak  once  in 
a  while  about  the  five  hundred  dollars ;  I  could  see 
he  was  beginning  to  think  of  that  now.  You  see 
at  first  when  it  looked  like  we  was  going  to  do 
them  people  so  much  good  he  did  n't  think  so 
much  about  the  reward  we  was  going  to  get;  but 
now  it  was  different.  When  it  was  good  luck  he 
threw  in  the  five  hundred  like  it  was  n't  nothing; 
but  now  when  it  was  bad  luck  he  counted  every 
cent  of  it.  He  was  as  disgusted  as  if  he  had  just 
lost  it.  Anyways,  that  is  how  it  was  with  me. 

On  the  way  back  Clancy  steered  into  a  restau 
rant  where  he  knew  the  girls  that  waited,  and  we 
got  a  good  supper.  And  pretty  soon  he  did  n't 
mind  it  no  more.  He  ordered  more  ham  and  eggs 
and  asked  the  girl  why  was  she  looking  so  solemn ; 
so  then  she  cheered  right  up  and  sassed  him  back 
some,  and  she  kept  hanging  around  to  hear  what 
he  would  say  next. 

But  I  could  n  't  let  our  five  hundred  dollars  go  so 
easy  as  that;  it  kept  on  my  mind.  And  I  told 
Clancy  it  would  'a'  been  a  fine  thing  if  we  had 
found  them  there. 


422  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

"Pass  it  up  and  eat  your  supper,"  he  says. 
"There  's  millions  we  have  n't  got.  We  won't 
miss  an  extra  five  hundred."  He  took  some  more 
potatoes  and  asked  the  girl  if  it  was  n't  so.  The 
girl  asked  if  we  would  have  some  more  of  the  hot 
biscuit  and  Clancy  said  yes,  it  would  be  good  for 
what  was  ailing  him ;  he  had  just  had  an  attack  of 
stomach  trouble.  And  that  made  him  think  to  ask 
how  the  little  girl  was  getting  along  that  scalded 
her  foot.  The  other  girl  said  it  was  awful  bad  for 
a  while  but  now  she  was  getting  better.  And  then 
she  went  on  and  told  what  a  nice  girl  the  other  girl 
was  and  praised  her  up  and  said  it  was  too  bad 
it  happened.  Clancy  said  you  bet  it  was  so;  she 
was  the  best  looking  girl  in  the  place.  And  he 
said  that  if  his  next  job  turned  out  like  he  expected 
he  was  going  to  take  somebody  to  the  theater.  So 
then  the  other  girl  sassed  him  back  some  more  and 
we  had  a  real  good  time.  Clancy  seemed  to  know 
them  all.  He  could  make  most  anybody  cheer  up ; 
I  guess  that  is  why  they  was  glad  to  see  him  come. 

On  the  way  back  to  our  room  he  did  n't  say 
much.  Three  or  four  times  I  asked  him  what  he 
was  going  to  do  about  that  Valdes  business  but  he 
did  n't  seem  to  be  bothering  about  it;  I  thought 
he  was  n  't  interested  in  it  no  more.  Whenever  I 
thought  I  was  getting  him  started  his  mind  would 
go  right  off  it  again  and  talk  about  base-ball ;  he 
did  n't  seem  able  to  take  nothing  serious.  I  was 
kind  of  disappointed  in  him.  I  did  n't  say  no 
more.  I  have  seen  him  sit  between  swims  and  talk 
base-ball. 


ON  THE  TRAIL  OF  A  LADY  423 

But  when  we  got  back  to  the  place  he  turned 
the  key  in  the  door  and  lit  up  the  lamp  and  took 
off  his  coat  and  sat  down  and  got  kind  of  sensible. 
I  guessed  he  was  going  to  do  some  thinking  now; 
but  after  he  had  tried  it  a  while  things  did  n't 
seem  to  suit  him.  He  got  up  and  took  off  his  vest 
and  rolled  up  his  sleeves  above  his  elbows  and 
turned  down  his  collar  and  then  he  sat  down  and 
tackled  it  again.  That  time  it  went  better.  After 
a  while  his  hand  reached  out  and  took  a  hammer 
from  his  brussels  carpet-sack  kit  and  began  tick- 
tacking  on  the  heel  of  his  shoe ;  then  he  seemed  to 
be  right  at  it  and  putting  a  rivet  into  everything 
he  thought.  He  had  big  muscles  that  twinkled  on 
his  arm ;  I  guess  he  did  n  't  know  he  had  the  ham 
mer  at  all.  Maybe  he  was  so  used  to  doing  all  his 
thinking  at  work  in  his  old  clothes  that  it  was  n't 
natural  for  him  to  be  serious  when  he  was  dressed 
up. 

''Well,  it  's  up  to  you  to  find  them,"  he  says. 

' '  Ain  't  you  going  to  help  ? "  I  says. 

1  i  I  will  tend  to  the  board  and  lodging.  And  you 
can  find  them  better  than  anyone  else. ' ' 

' '  How  am  I  going  to  do  it  ?"  I  says. 

"Go  out  and  hunt  for  them— same  as  a  detec 
tive,"  lie  says. 

Now  he  seemed  to  be  talking  sensible. 

' '  All  right,  Clancy ;  you  will  keep  me  going  and 
I  will  be  a  detective,  won't  I?  How  would  you 
start  in  if  you  was  me?" 

'  *  Keep  going  around  and  mixing  up  till  you  run 
across  them— same  as  a  detective." 


424  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

''That  would  n't  never  work.  A  detective  has 
got  a  clue.  I  ain't  got  none." 

"Why  have  n't  we?"  he  says.  "We  have  got  a 
clue  that  they  are  too  blame  poor  to  travel.  So 
they  are  right  in  this  town,  and  going  down.  They 
are  in  a  poor  neighborhood.  And  you  know  their 
name ;  so  you  can  go  and  find  them. ' ' 

' '  We  ought  to  think  up  more  than  that.  What  is 
the  rest  of  the  clue  ?  "  I  says. 

' '  Don 't  bother  about  clues, ' '  he  says.  ' '  The  main 
thing  is  to  go  at  it  right.  Whatever  neighborhood 
this  woman  lives  in  the  kids  know  her. ' ' 

' '  You  bet  they  do, "  I  says. 

"And  kids  are  always  out  on  the  street,"  he 
says. 

"Of  course,"  I  says. 

"And  in  them  poor  neighborhoods  they  are  al 
ways  collected  in  bunches,"  he  says. 

*  *  Sometimes  they  come  for  blocks, ' '  I  says. 

"Well,  your  strong  hold  is  that  you  are  a  kid. 
You  can  find  out  anything.  A  man  would  have  to 
go  canvassing  to  get  into  every  house;  but  you 
have  got  the  town  turned  inside  out  for  you.  And 
one  asking  will  clean  up  a  district  for  blocks 
around.  Just  go  out  and  mix  up  and  you  will  be 
a  good  enough  detective." 

* '  I  can  see  how  that  might  work, ' '  I  says.  ' '  But 
it  ain't  the  right  way  to  do  them  things.  There 
ain't  no  sense  in  just  letting  things  turn  out  by 
accident.  A  detective  would  n't  do  that." 

"He  would  n't?  How  else  would  he  do  it?"  he 
says. 


ON  THE  TRAIL  OF  A  LADY  425 

"He  would  have  a  clue,"  I  says.  "Your  way 
of  doing  it  is  just  chance." 

' '  Look  a '  here, ' '  he  says.  ' '  How  does  a  detective 
find  anyone?  How  does  any  clue  work?  In  the 
first  place  he  finds  out  that  a  fellow  is  red-headed 
or  walks  pigeon-toed  or  something  like  that,  don't 
he?  And  he  finds  that  he  is  likely  to  mix  up  with 
boiler-makers  or  bridge-builders  or  be  painting 
stacks  or  something  like  that.  With  me  they 
could  n't  figure  out  very  well.  And  when  they 
have  got  it  boiled  down  to  that  there  is  a  good 
many  of  him  and  he  is  liable  to  be  anywheres  in 
the  United  States.  So  that  is  his  clue  and  he  goes 
snooping  around.  Then  what  happens?" 

' '  Someday, ' '  I  says,  '  *  he  runs  across  him. ' ' 

"Ain't  that  just  what  I  am  saying,"  he  says. 
"Maybe  he  will  happen  to  do  it  and  maybe  he 
won't — maybe  the  other  fellow  has  got  up  a  better 
clue  than  him.  And  he  always  finds  him  by  acci 
dent—if  it  is  worth  telling  about  at  all.  If  he 
knew  where  he  was  he  would  n't  need  to  hunt. 
And  when  you  hunt  and  find  it  is  a  happen-so. 
You  pick  your  clue  and  take  a  chance  on  it.  And 
the  main-pin  of  the  whole  business  always  is  that 
you  have  luck.  How  else  do  they  EVER  find  them 
if  they  don 't  know  for  sure  ? ' ' 

He  went  on  like  that  and  proved  that  when  you 
get  right  down  to  it  everything  just  happens.  Well, 
I  always  did  say  you  have  got  to  take  your  chances ; 
but  I  did  n  't  mean  it  that  way. 

' '  What  you  say  is  the  truth, ' '  I  says.  ' '  It  would 
work  all  right;  but  it  ain't  the  right  way." 


426  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

"What  do  you  want  but  the  truth?"  he  says. 
"Truth  is  facts.  You  've  got  a  clue.  You  are 
taking  the  best  chance;  that  's  all  there  is  to  it. 
If  their  name  was  in  the  directory  that  would  be 
a  better  clue.  But  it  ain  't. ' ' 

"I  would  n't  call  that  no  clue  at  all,"  I  says. 
"A  good  smart  detective  gets  up  a  clue  and  it 
works  out.  That  is  what  a  clue  is  for.  You  don't 
know  what  I  mean, ' '  I  says. 

"Don't  I?"  he  says. 

"No,"  I  says.  "And,  besides,  I  don't  know 
what  she  looks  like.  But  we  will  have  to  do  it  like 
you  say,  if  you  can't  think  up  any  of  them  dif 
ferent  ways.  If  it  was  you  that  was  hunting  you 
would  know  her  when  you  seen  her.  I  don't  even 
know  that." 

* '  Yes, ' '  he  says,  "  if  I  could  run  around  without 
working  and  filling  my  contracts  and  could  mix 
up  like  you  and  could  know  her  when  I  seen  hec 
it  would  be  an  advantage.  But  I  've  noticed  that 
advantages  are  split  up  and  divided  around  among 
people.  Your  way  of  going  at  it  would  be  as  good 
a  chance  as  mine— maybe  better." 

So  it  was  settled  that  to-morrow  I  was  to  start 
out  and  find  her.  My  clue  was  that  they  was  poor 
and  that  their  name  was  Valdes.  And  it  was  a 
secret  about  the  money.  It  was  n  't  the  way  I  would 
rather  do  it ;  but  it  was  the  best  Clancy  could  think 
up.  He  said  his  way  would  work  a  good  deal  bet 
ter  than  some  of  the  detectives  he  knew.  And  it 
was  our  job,  so  we  would  do  it. 

"All  right,  Clancy,"  I  says.  "I  will  try  it 
awhile  your  way.  But  it  don 't  look  right  to  me. ' ' 


ON  THE  TRAIL  OF  A  LADY 


427 


"I  laid  on  my  back" 


He  sat  and  thought  a  while. 

"I  '11  tell  you  how  you  'd  better  do,"  he  says. 
"Make  yourself  up  in  disguise.  Fix  yourself  so 
that  nobody  will  be  suspicious  when  they  see  you 
where  you  are  mixing-up.  Pretend  you  are  a  kid. 


428  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

Go  around  and  act  like  one.  Make  out  that  you 
are  getting  acquainted  and  having  a  good  time. 
They  won't  ever  suspect  you.  Between  times  keep 
your  eye  out  for  a  dark-complected  lady.  If  you 
should  happen  to  see  a  brunette  ask  her  name  on 
suspicion.  But  keep  mixing  up  with  the  kids  and 
you  will  find  her  out  some  way.  And  when  you 
have  got  her  it  will  get  more  interesting.  Keep  it  a 
secret  about  the  money." 

He  kept  on  talking  foolishness  like  that.  So  I 
did  n't  say  no  more.  While  he  was  looking  up  the 
base-ball  news  I  took  off  some  of  my  clothes  and 
guessed  I  would  turn  in.  When  I  got  up  on  the 
bed,  which  was  so  high  it  would  'a'  killed  a  baby 
to  fall  out  of,  I  stood  up  and  stepped  over  the 
sunk-down  place  and  got  in  on  the  other  side  of 
it— I  never  touched  it.  Then  I  laid  on  my  back 
and  looked  up  at  the  puckered  canopy  all  pointing 
towards  the  middle;  anything  like  that  kind  of 
gathers  your  mind  all  towards  the  middle  of  it 
and  keeps  you  looking  at  the  button.  All  of  a 
sudden  the  light  went  out  and  Clancy  clumb  in 
on  the  other  side  of  the  place. 

I  did  n't  sleep  very  good  for  a  while.  It  did  n't 
seem  natural  to  be  shut  up  in  a  room  with  the  win 
dows  down  and  no  air  moving  past  on  your  face; 
it  made  it  seem  all  dead  inside.  Being  in  a  room 
is  like  shutting  yourself  up  tight  in  a  box,  only  a 
little  bigger.  But  you  don't  notice  it  till  you  have 
slept  outside  a  good  deal.  Someways  I  would 
rather  lay  down  with  things  like  they  are  when  it 
gets  dark  and  sleep  natural. 


ON  THE  TRAIL  OF  A  LADY  429 

Three  or  four  times  I  shut  my  eyes  and  kept 
dropping  off  to  sleep ;  but  something  would  always 
scare  me  back  again.  After  a  while  I  done  it 
though;  I  got  to  dreaming  the  bed  was  a  hearse. 
It  was  all  trimmed  up  pretty  good  inside  and  it 
kept  going  on  and  on  and  taking  me  somewheres — 
some  ways  it  was  like  a  steamboat— and  after  a 
while  I  guess  it  must  'a'  struck  a  snag  because  it 
woke  me  up  all  of  a  sudden.  I  found  I  had  been 
kicking  around  in  my  sleep ;  my  hand  was  right 
in  the  dead  man's  place.  You  bet  I  took  it  back 
mighty  quick.  I  ought  n't  to  'a'  laid  on  my  back 
because  it  don't  agree  with  me;  I  knew  it,  too, 
but  some  ways  I  was  afraid  to  move  and  turn  over ; 
it  was  all  dead  quiet  and  you  'd  'a'  thought  the 
center-button  had  me  mesmerized.  I  have  seen  the 
Professor  get  people  dead-set  like  that;  but  it  is 
only  a  bluff.  So  I  made  up  my  own  mind  and 
turned  my  face  to  the  wall,  and  then  I  tried  to 
think  about  the  five  hundred. 

It  is  funny  about  holes.  Most  times  when  you 
dig  a  hole  and  then  decide  you  don't  want  it  and 
will  put  the  dirt  all  back  in  again,  it  won't  go. 
There  is  more  of  it  than  you  took  out.  But  I  have 
seen  graves  that  worked  just  the  other  way.  I 
have  seen  them  that  the  dirt  kept  settling  down 
till-  there  did  n  't  turn  out  to  be  as  much  as  there 
was  before.  Then  they  are  just  sunk-down  places 
and  look  awful  empty.  I  don't  like  sunk-down 
places;  there  is  something  about  them. 


CHAPTER  XXXIY 


THE  GOLDEN  HORSE 

TIE  next  morning  I  woke 
up  and  took  beefsteak  and 
onions.  Clancy  he  took  the 
same.  The  girl  asked  how 
we  would  like  it  to  be  and 
he  said  any  way  that  suited 
her,  so  that  she  did  n't 
make  it  too  scarce;  and 
when  we  was  through  he  got 
his  rope  and  things  to  go 
and  tackle  the  other  stack. 
And  he  told  me  that  now  I 
could  start  out  and  circulate. 

So  I  done  it.  When  I  had  gone  a  piece  I  got  into 
a  bunch  that  was  playing  ring-taw ;  and  when  they 
found  out  I  had  some  marbles  they  give  me  a 
chance.  But  all  that  come  of  it  was  that  I  lost  my 
shooter ;  I  did  n  't  find  out  anything  that  fit  in  with 
the  clue.  The  next  crowd  I  come  to  was  only  one 
fellow  at  first;  but  I  helped  him  to  put  up  a  kite 
and  that  drew  a  lot  of  them  that  all  wanted  to  be 
the  one  that  was  flying  it.  We  most  had  a  fight 
about  whether  another  fellow's  kite  was  going  to 
be  bigger  than  ours;  and  I  took  the  side  of  the 


THE  GOLDEN  HORSE  431 

fellow  that  had  our  kite.  The  other  fellow  was 
only  blowing  and  showing  off,  anyway ;  and  I  told 
him  so.  That  way  I  got  pretty  well  acquainted, 
and  they  was  all  willing  to  talk  to  me  and  tell  me 
things.  But  I  could  n't  find  out  anything  about  it 
from  them.  After  that  I  kept  a-going;  and  when 
noon  come  I  bought  some  ginger  cakes  and  went 
off  by  myself  and  sat  on  the  curbstone  and  let 
George  take  his  swim  while  I  was  eating.  And 
when  dinner  was  over  I  struck  out  in  a  different 
direction. 

I  guess  I  could  'a'  had  lots  of  fun  if  I  had  let 
myself ;  but  you  see  I  had  to  not  get  interested  be 
cause  I  was  tending  to  business.  I  liked  it  first- 
rate.  But  that  night  when  I  got  home  from  work 
I  had  n't  found  anyone  that  knew  where  she  lived. 
But  Clancy  did  n't  mind  it;  he  said  that  was  n't 
nothing  and  it  was  only  because  I  had  n't  come 
across  the  right  ones  yet. 

Four  or  five  days  it  was  the  same.  I  come  across 
a  fellow  which  had  a  kite  that  he  was  willing  to 
sell  for  eight  cents,  and  it  was  a  good  flier;  so  I 
guessed  I  had  better  buy  it.  After  that  I  did  n't 
need  to  look  for  a  gang;  I  would  just  put  up  a 
kite  wherever  I  come  to.  And  when  I  had  let  the 
different  ones  hold  it  I  would  know  all  about  that 
neighborhood  and  take  it  in.  I  done  good  that 
way  and  Clancy  said  I  was  getting  to  be  a  great 
detective.  He  said  he  meant  it,  too.  But  the  kite 
got  its  tail  around  a  telegraph  wire  and  staid  up ; 
so  I  had  to  take  my  chances  again. 

Sometimes  I  got  pretty  sick  of  going  around  and 


432  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

doing  that,  and  I  told  Clancy  I  did  n  't  like  his  way 
at  all ;  it  was  n 't  sensible  and  there  was  n  ?t  any  fun 
in  it  either.  It  seemed  like  I  was  just  going 
around  playing.  He  said  he  seen  what  was  the 
matter  with  me.  He  said  I  must  remember  that  I 
was  only  PRETENDING  I  was  playing;  I  was 
working  like  a  detective  and  what  I  was  doing  was 
important.  The  next  day  it  went  better  again;  I 
kept  doing  it  and  asking  where  she  lived  in  the 
different  places. 

Clancy  did  n't  seem  to  mind  it  when  I  did  n't 
have  any  luck;  and  then  I  found  out  why  it  was. 
When  I  had  been  at  it  about  a  week  he  told  me  he 
was  intending  to  look  them  up  himself  when  he  got 
time.  But  just  now  he  had  to  stick  at  what  he  was 
doing.  You  see  he  come  down  there  to  work  at 
making  iron  tanks  in  a  boiler  place,  but  the  place 
did  n't  pan  out  to  suit  him.  So  then  he  struck  out 
and  got  a  job  of  his  own  painting  a  stack.  When 
he  was  doing  it  he  took  a  contract  for  some  more. 
Then  he  seen  he  had  got  into  business  for  himself 
at  last ;  there  was  steamboat  stacks  on  lots  of  facto 
ries  in  the  South  and  he  guessed  he  would  travel 
around  and  paint  them.  The  way  he  got  into  it  he 
could  n't  help  it.  You  see  one  time  when  he  was 
looking  for  a  riveting  job  and  they  did  n't  need  a 
man  he  took  a  job  for  a  fill-in  a-painting  front  ends 
on  locomotives.  The  front  ends  of  locomotives 
which  take  the  wind  in  all  kinds  of  weather  gets 
the  paint  wore  off  and  need  to  be  took  care  of  and 
painted ;  so  that  way  he  learned  to  paint  cast-iron. 
So  this  last  time  he  got  out  of  a  job  he  looked  up 


THE  GOLDEN  HORSE  433 

and  seen  a  smoke-stack;  and  there  was  him  that 
was  used  to  working  up  high  on  waterworks  towers 
and  bridges  and  that  knew  how  to  paint  iron,  and 
that  made  him  a  big  smoke-stack  painter.  He 
did  n  't  like  to  get  so  far  away  from  his  real  trade ; 
but  it  seemed  to  keep  branching  out  in  all  direc 
tions. 

"How  could  I  help  it,"  he  says,  "when  a  job 
stands  up  and  looks  you  in  the  face?"  There 
was  him  and  there  was  the  stacks. 

Well,  as  I  was  a-saying,  there  got  to  be  more 
that  needed  painting  and  it  paid  pretty  good  and 
he  was  going  to  travel  round.  He  would  'a'  done 
it  if  it  was  n't  that  I  come  along  with  this  Valdes 
business  to  be  tended  to.  Now  he  would  stay 
there  in  New  Orleans,  and  find  some  other  work 
when  them  stacks  was  done.  He  would  V  quit 
now  but  the  contracts  he  had  took  would  last  him 
a  week  longer,  and  he  had  to  keep  on  and  fill  them. 
He  could  n't  quit  his  own  work  that  way ;  it  was  n't 
as  if  he  was  working  for  a  boss. 

"You  keep  at  it  a  week  longer,"  he  says  to  me. 
"Then  I  will  get  some  time  to  go  at  it  myself  and 
help  you  out.  I  will  get  some  kind  of  work  that 
will  pay  our  board  here.  And  I  will  take  time  to 
think  this  other  business  over  and  get  around. ' ' 

He  said  he  would  maybe  take  a  job  at  ordinary 
painting,  now  that  he  was  started  at  that  kind  of 
work.  He  said  he  did  n't  like  to  tackle  anything 
but  iron;  he  was  used  to  always  working  on  iron 
and  it  was  more  in  his  line.  But  with  him  things 
kept  a-branching  out;  and  he  said  he  bet  he  could 

28 


434  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

paint  wood  or  brick  just  as  good  as  iron  if  he  went 
at  it.  That  would  maybe  keep  him  there  and  give 
him  time.  So  I  kept  a-going.  I  seen  so  much  and 
done  so  much  which  did  n  't  amount  to  nothing  that 
it  would  make  me  tired  to  read  it.  But  after  a 
while  I  come  to  the  part  that  I  am  a-going  to  tell 
about. 

One  morning  when  I  come  out  of  the  door  I 
guessed  I  would  make  up  my  mind  where  I  would 
go  this  time ;  so  while  I  was  thinking  it  over  I  got 
to  going  down  stream  and  I  went  along  with  the 
mule  teams  and  everything  towards  the  river. 
While  I  was  still  thinking  it  over  I  come  to  where 
Canal  Street  empties  into  the  Mississippi  and  the 
river  was  flowing  down  stream;  so  then  I  turned 
to  the  left  and  kept  going'  along.  And  by  that  time 
I  seen  I  was  going  down  through  the  old  part  of 
town  that  day. 

You  see  that  city  has  two  halves  to  it;  and  the 
old  part  and  the  new  part  don't  get  mixed  up  on 
accounts  of  Canal  Street  being  between.  That 
street  is  like  a  river,  with  Frenchtown  on  one  side 
and  the  new  part  on  the  other ;  but  them  two  don 't 
run  opposition  like  river  towns  because  the  new 
part  has  most  of  the  git-ap  and  the  other  would 
rather  stay  like  it  used  to  be  and  feel  satisfied. 
Anybody  would  think  that  the  two  halves  would 
get  mixed  up  and  both  alike  by  people  moving 
from  one  side  of  Canal  Street  to  the  other;  but 
that  ain't  so,  because  they  don't  do  it.  The  old- 
time  houses  in  the  Creole  part  keeps  their  people 
to  themselves. 


THE  GOLDEN  HORSE  435 

Well,  as  I  was  a-saying,  I  turned  down  stream; 
it  was  a  bright  day  and  I  kept  going  along  and  not 
bothering  about  it  no  more  than  if  I  was  a  raft. 
That  day  it  kind  of  come  natural  to  drift  along 
with  the  current,  'specially  in  that  sleepy  old  part 
of  town.  There  was  a  careless  old  road  that  run 
along  by  the  river,  and  there  was  n't  much  busi 
ness  along  there.  On  one  side  of  the  road  was  the 
line  of  brigs  and  barks  tied  up  and  lying  there 
still  and  quiet  and  waiting  their  turn  as  far  as  you 
could  see;  and  along  the  other  side  of  the  street 
was  all  kinds  of  houses  looking  as  old  as  worn-out 
ships.  I  guess  that  nothing  looks  as  old  as  a  worn- 
out  ship  that  ain't  ever  going  to  sea  no  more.  I 
mean  one  that  is  just  backed  up  into  still  water 
and  left  there  by  everybody,  but  keeps  looking  like 
it  could  go  out  and  do  as  good  as  the  rest  of  them 
again  if  they  would  give  it  a  fair  show.  I  seen  one 
once  that  I  would  like  to  have ;  it  was  pretty  strong 
and  able  looking  only  it  was  coming  to  pieces  in 
spots  where  it  had  got  it  the  worst.  And  now  it 
was  n't  no  good  except  some  old  sailor  wanted  to 
come  and  sleep  on  it.  Well,  them  houses  was  that 
kind,  only  they  had  the  people  and  the  old  furni 
ture  in  them  yet ;  you  'd  'a '  thought  they  had  come 
there  from  a  hundred  years  ago  and  was  moored  all 
in  line  along  the  street  together.  They  made  the 
whole  place  seem  like  the  foreign  past  where  every 
thing  was  remembering;  I  can't  tell  just  how  it 
was  but  anyhow  it  was  that  way. 

I  loafed  along  with  my  hands  in  my  pockets 
and  kept  leaving  the  noise  of  drays  and  drivers 


436  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

and  roustabouts  farther  and  farther  behind;  it 
kept  getting  quieter  and  quieter  and  after  a  while 
1  could  n't  hear  nothing  but  myself  a-whistling.  I 
kept  on  passing  old  run-down  houses;  sometimes  a 
tired-out  looking  frame  building  that  was  as  stag- 
gery  as  its  shed  and  so  old  they  was  both  dark  to 
match ;  sometimes  a  little  tobacco  store  standing  up 
on  the  bare  posts  of  its  foundation  like  a  ship  when 
she  is  in  the  stays,  and  with  rickety  stairs  letting 
themselves  down  to  the  sidewalk  in  case  a  sailor 
should  come  along  some  time  and  want  some  to 
bacco  ;  and  sometimes  a  plaster-fronted  house  with 
its  face  all  scarred.  You  could  see  where  things 
had  happened  to  them  houses  years  and  years  ago ; 
they  made  you  think  about  things. 

Clancy  told  me  it  used  to  be  good  times  down 
that  way.  But  that  was  before  the  war.  You 
could  see  for  yourself  that  it  might  'a'  been  pretty 
fair  when  people  had  money  to  spend  and  the 
furniture  was  new  and  everybody  had  niggers  and 
could  go  visiting  in  style.  But  the  best  times  was 
so  far  back  that  all  them  people  that  lived  there 
first  was  dead  and  had  left  their  old  furniture  and 
things  to  the  ones  that  come  next.  Every  person 
that  lived  there,  when  you  stopped  to  think  about 
it,  had  moved  out  to  them  little  houses  I  seen  in 
the  cemetery.  But  the  ones  that  was  here  now 
was  n't  rich;  they  was  just  living  there  like  it 
was  a  cast-off  neighborhood.  I  did  n't  meet  many 
along  that  road.  But  a  fellow  would  know  all  the 
time  that  there  was  people  and  furniture  inside, 
and  that  the  houses  was  keeping  them  to  themselves. 


THE  GOLDEN  HORSE  437 

Some  of  them  poor  neighborhoods  is  that  way— but 
not  all  of  them ;  these  houses  looked  as  if  they  was 
keeping  it  all  a  secret  about  being  poor.  TV  hen 
people  lose  their  money  a  place  gets  poor  and  then 
it  goes  ahead  itself  and  makes  things  worse;  you 
could  see  how  it  done  it.  Well,  it  was  n  't  none  of  my 
business ;  I  did  n 't  live  there,  so  it  was  n 't  nothing 
to  me.  But  I  could  n 't  help  feeling  bad  for  all  them 
old  houses  and  things  that  had  struck  bad  luck. 

If  I  had  kept  on  thinking  like  that  I  guess  I 
would  'a '  got  to  remembering  graveyards  again ; 
so  I  thought  up  another  tune  and  kept  on  a-going. 
There  kept  on  being  ships  all  along;  there  was 
more  vacant  places  between  them  now  than  when  I 
started,  but  there  was  n't  any  end  to  them  as  far 
as  I  could  see.  After  a  while,  when  I  was  getting 
out  to  the  suburbs  of  the  ships,  I  come  to  a  little 
cobblestojied  square  that  was  just  an  open  place  for 
market-day.  It  was  a  market-place  yet  but  there 
was  n 't  ever  any  market  there  no  more ;  everything 
was  old  and  empty  and  nobody  there.  There  was 
an  old  iron  bell  on  a  pole  with  an  old  rotten  rope 
hanging  from  its  rusty  crank.  The  bell  pole  was 
old  and  dark-looking  like  everything  else ;  the  time 
and  weather  had  chewed  the  rope  till  it  was  too 
short ;  the  end  of  it  was  all  f razzly.  The  old  bell 
looked  like  it  could  n't  ring  any  more.  But  I 
guess  it  used  to  do  all  right  away  back  when  it 
had  to  call  all  them  people  to  come  and  do  their 
morning  marketing.  But  it  was  all  quiet  now; 
there  was  n't  nothing  doing  except  when  a  little 
wind  would  come  and  move  the  rope  on  the  bell. 


438 


THE  GOLDEN  HORSE  439 

I  had  more  than  twenty-five  cents  in  my  pocket 
and  I  was  so  hungry  from  walking  that  they  would 
'a'  got  some  trade  from  me,  I  guess,  if  they  had 
kept  the  market  going  till  now.  I  would  'a '  bought 
a  piece  of  pie  or  any  kind  of  cooked  stuff,  accord 
ing  to  what  they  had.  Maybe  I  would  V  took 
cookies.  I  bet  they  had  all  kinds  of  good  stuff 
away  back  when  them  fine  Southern  ladies  and  big 
black  nigger  mammies  was  filling  their  baskets 
there.  Maybe  it  was  a  place  where  they  put  up 
likely  niggers  to  sell,  too,  same  as  a  place  I  seen 
down  town.  And  you  could  look  them  over  and 
pick  out  a  good  one  that  could  play  the  mouth- 
organ  and  do  things. 

But  there  was  n't  anything  there  now;  if  Bags 
had  'a'  been  along  he  could  n't  'a'  found  a  piece 
of  something  to  smell.  The  Gulf  breezes  and  the 
rains  had  had  the  place  to  themselves  so  long  that 
they  had  washed  and  blowed  every  little  thing 
away ;  they  had  cleaned  the  cobblestones  as  bare  as 
a  hearth  and  swept  out  the  cracks  between;  there 
was  n  't  a  wisp  of  straw  or  a  cabbage  leaf  or  a  yes 
terday 's  circus  bill  or  anything.  There  was  n't 
anything  doing  or  any  signs  that  there  had  been 
anything  doing;  just  the  remainders  of  what  was 
built  there  to  stay.  Trade  had  moved  away  from 
there  and  been  gone  so  long  that  the  place  was  n't 
even  for  rent.  Only  the  place  was  left  and  that 
was  n't  even  good  for  something  else.  The  bell 
looked  like  somebody  ought  to  ring  it ;  so  I  jumped 
up  and  got  the  end  of  the  rope  to  find  out  how  it 
sounded.  It  was  pretty  stiff  and  clanky;  when  I 


440  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

first  pulled  the  rope  it  squeaked  louder  than  it 
rang.  The  crank  hollered  so  loud  you  'd  'a' 
thought  I  surprised  it;  I  guess  nobody  had  n't 
done  that  to  it  for  a  long  time.  But  I  made  it 
ring  all  right ;  so  then  I  kept  on  a-going. 

At  first  I  turned  away  from  the  river  and  then  I 
went  along  in  the  same  direction  again.  After  a 
while,  when  I  was  passing  the  end  of  an  alley— or 
maybe  it  was  a  little  between-street— I  heard  some 
thing  that  sounded  like  kids,  but  when  I  stopped 
and  listened  it  was  only  a  little  girl.  The  noise  of 
her  come  from  the  big  doors  of  a  little  stable  down 
the  alley  and  from  what  she  was  saying  I  could  tell 
she  was  bossing  a  horse  around  and  telling  him  to 
do  things.  Between  times  she  would  laugh  and 
sing  and  have  a  lot  of  fun  to  herself;  so  I  guessed 
I  would  go  passing  down  that  way.  I  would  go 
moseying  along  as  if  I  was  only  on  my  way  to  the 
next  street  and  I  would  see  what  she  was  doing 
that  was  so  much  fun. 

When  I  got  down  to  the  doors,  which  was  open, 
I  went  slower  and  took  a  look.  It  was  n't  a  real 
horse  at  all ;  it  was  going  to  be  a  big  wooden  image 
of  a  horse.  The  little  girl  was  sitting  straddle  on 
his  back  and  he  was  standing  in  the  chips  of  him 
self  like  a  horse  that  had  just  been  bedded  down 
with  shavings.  The  shavings  and  pieces  of  him 
was  scattered  all  over  the  floor  and  some  out  into 
the  alley;  but  he  was  n't  all  come  out  of  the  chunk 
yet.  Some  of  him  was  all  done— his  head  and  one 
foreleg  was  perfect— and  some  of  him  was  only 
chopped  out  but  commencing  to  look  natural.  The 


THE  GOLDEN  HORSE  441 

rest  of  him  was  just  big  square  blocks  of  wood  all 
fastened  together;  you  could  see  where  the  joints 
come  because  the  dry  glue  was  all  squeezed  out 
between  the  places.  You  see  he  was  so  big  they 
had  built  him  together  out  of  different-shaped 
blocks  before  they  started  to  whittle  him  down; 
but  even  if  he  was  n  't  all  out  you  could  see  by  what 
was  done  that  he  was  going  to  be  a  good  lively 
horse.  From  the  way  he  arched  his  neck  and 
threw  out  his  fore  leg  you  'd  most  think  he  was 
stamping  and  pawing  to  hurry  up  and  get  out  of 
it.  But  what  I  could  n't  make  out  was  the  chunks 
that  was  all  glued  together  and  piled  up  on  his 
back;  it  was  just  a  load  of  wood  on  him  and  too 
heavy  for  a  horse;  it  did  n't  look  right  on  him. 
The  little  girl  was  sitting  on  behind  with  her  arms 
around  it. 

''That  is  a  fine  big  hobby  horse  you  have  got," 
I  says. 

When  she  seen  me  come  snooping  around  she 
stopped  all  of  a  sudden  and  quit  saying  git-ap ; 
she  sat  looking  sideways  at  me.  She  had  big 
brown  eyes.  She  did  n't  say  nothing. 

"  Is  he  going  to  be  a  sign  horse  ? "  I  says. 

She  just  shook  her  head  and  said  "No." 

"What  kind  of  a  horse  is  he  going  to  be?"  I 
says. 

"He  is  going  to  be  a  church  horse.  He  is  n't 
going  to  be  a  sign  horse  at  all,"  she  says.  I  seen 
she  did  n't  like  to  have  him  called  that.  She  was 
kind  of  bashful  some  ways,  but  she  looked  right 
at  me  with  her  eyes  wide  open  like  she  was  think- 


442  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

ing  me  over  and  would  maybe  get  acquainted.  I 
guess  she  thought  I  ought  to  go  on  and  mind  my 
own  business.  But  I  guessed  I  would  hang  around 
a  while,  anyhow ;  I  wished  the  man  would  come 
back  and  carve  some  on  him.  The  little  girl  was 
mighty  good-looking  for  anyone  that  is  dark  com- 
plexioned ;  but  you  could  see  she  was  n  't  tanned  that 
way;  it  all  come  natural,  like  her  eyes,  which  was 
big  and  brown. 

"Well,  I  did  n't  know,"  I  says.  "I  thought 
maybe  he  was  going  to  be  a  harness-shop  horse. 
Then  he  would  have  to  be  dappled." 

1 '  He  is  n 't  a  shop  horse  at  all, ' '  she  says.  ' '  Don 't 
you  see  he  has  got  St.  Martin  on  his  back?"  she 
says.  And  she  pointed  to  the  chunks  of  wotfd  that 
was  all  glued  up  in  front  of  her.  It  did  n't  look 
like  nothing  to  me. 

"  Is  n 't  he  going  to  have  a  nice  cloak  1 ' '  she  says. 
And  she  stroked  her  uand  on  a  bunch  of  stuck- 
together  and  sawed-off  scantlings  that  did  n't  look 
like  nothing  at  all.  I  told  her  it  was  pretty  good ; 
but  all  the  same  I  could  n't  see  it.  But  after  she 
said  that,  I  could  see  maybe  the  other  part  was 
going  to  be  a  man ;  I  could  tell  it  by  his  block  head 
and  the  square  arm  that  was  sticking  out  like  a 
handle. 

"He  is  n't  going  to  be  a  dappled  horse  at  all," 
she  says.  "He  is  going  to  be  all  covered  with 
gold." 

"What  for?"  I  says. 

"So  that  people  can  look  up  at  him,"  she  says. 
"He  is  going  away  up  on  a  church  where  every 
body  can  see  him. ' ' 


THE  GOLDEN  HORSE  443 

' '  Oh,  then  he  is  a  monument  horse, ' '  I  says. 

"It  is  St.  Martin,"  she  says.  And  she  pointed 
to  the  chunk  again  that  she  had  been  holding  onto 
with  her  arms  around  the  waist  of  it. 

"What  are  they  going  to  make  a  statue  of  him 
for?"  I  says.  "What  did  he  do?" 

When  I  said  that  she  sat  and  looked  at  me  with 
her  eyes  opened  wide  like  she  was  pretty  sur 
prised. 

"Why,  don't  you  know  about  St.  Martin?"  she 
says. 

' '  I  never  heard  about  it, "  I  says. 

' '  Don 't  you  know  about  him  and  the  poor  man  ? ' ' 
she  says. 

"What  poor  man?"  I  says.  "I  just  come  from 
up  North.  I  have  n  't  been  around  here  long. ' ' 

Right  away  she  turned  sideways  on  the  horse 
and  seemed  to  get  interested  in  me.  Then  she  sat 
with  her  hands  in  her  lap  and  told  me  all  about  it. 

* '  Once  upon  a  time, ' '  she  says,  ' '  St.  Martin  was 
riding  down  the  road  on  his  big  fine  horse.  While 
he  was  riding  along  with  his  nice  velvet  cloak  wav 
ing  out  behind— just  like  this— he  met  a  poor  man 
walking.  The  poor  man  could  hardly  keep  himself 
warm  in  his  old  raggedy  clothes ;  he  was  shivering 
and  chattering  his  teeth  in  the  cold  chilly  weather. 
And  the  cold  was  coming  into  the  holes  of  his 
clothes.  He  was  as  cold  as  he  could  be.  St.  Mar 
tin  saw  him  and  made  his  horse  stop.  And  when 
he  looked  at  the  poor  man  it  made  him  feel  bad  to 
have  such  a  nice  cloak  and  be  so  warm  himself. 
So  he  took  his  cloak  and  cut  it  in  two  with  his 
sword  and  divided  up  with  the  poor  man.  And 


444 


PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 


^^RnSsK?^  v  * 

E^;^ '-:'>'•> 


"  'Once  upon  a  time'  ' 


was  n't  that  nice  for  him  to  do?  Don't  you  see," 
she  says,  "how  he  is  going  to  be  holding  the  end 
of  his  cloak  around  in  front  of  him  and  cutting 
off  a  piece  with  his  sword?" 


THE  GOLDEN   HORSE  445 

"What  sword?"  I  says. 

"Why,  the  one  he  is  going  to  have!  He  has  n't 
got  it  yet.  But  when  he  is  all  done  they  are  going 
to  make  him  one." 

"What  is  the  rest  of  it?"  I  says. 

"Why,  that  is  what  St.  Martin  did,"  she  says. 

It  was  a  kind  of  a  fairy  story.  When  she  had 
told  it  to  me  she  put  her  hands  in  her  lap  pretty 
satisfied  and  looked  as  if  I  would  think  it  was 
awful  wonderful.  I  did  n't  let  on  but  what  it  was 
something  great. 

"And  then  the  other  fellow  was  warm,"  I  says. 

"Yes,"  she  says,  and  she  opened  her  eyes  up 
wide  at  me. 

I  just  thinks  to  myself,  "I  het  the  fellow  was 
hungry,  too."  But  I  did  n't  tell  her  about  it.  If 
it  had  'a'  been  me  I  would  rather  have  had  the 
story  to  be  that  he  come  along  with  a  big  loaf  of 
bread  and  that  he  had  his  sword  along  to  cut  off 
some  nice  thick  slices.  That  would  'a'  suited  me 
all  right.  But  I  guess  I  must  'a'  looked  as  if  I 
thought  it  was  pretty  good,  anyhow;  she  acted 
pretty  satisfied. 


CHAPTER  XXXV 


LITTLE  LOUISE 


PTER  that  I  went  right  into 
the  place  and  looked  the 
horse  all  over.  One  of  his 
hind  legs  was  only  lumber 
yet.  His  tail  was  pretty 
chunky  too  and  was  n't  all 
whittled  away  from  his  leg 
yet,  but  it  was  beginning  to 
switch  some.  Then  I  looked 
around  the  whole  place,  which 
had  lots  of  drawings  and 

pieces  of  carving  hung  up  and  laying  around. 
I  found  it  was  n  't  a  stable  at  all ;  and  she  told  me 
it  belonged  to  old  Pierre,  who  was  an  altar  builder. 
All  over  one  side  was  drawings  of  peaks  and  arches 
and  three-leaved  vines  and  fancy  things ;  and  there 
was  some  pieces  of  carving  that  had  been  made 
after  them  with  flames  and  flowers  and  all  kinds 
of  wooden  flourishes.  At  that  side  there  was  a  long 
bench  with  a  wooden  vise  and  lots  of  clamps  and 
a  glue  pot  and  a  rack  of  carving  tools.  There  was 
one  piece  that  had  just  been  sawed  out  and  was 
being  carved  till  the  picture  of  it  looked  just  like 
it.  But  it  was  n 't  him  that  was  making  the  horse ; 

446 


LITTLE  LOUISE  447 

somebody  else  was  making  it  for  him.  She  said  he 
could  make  flowers  but  he  could  n't  make  live 
things.  He  was  awful  good  at  them  other  things 
which  was  his  trade  and  he  was  so  old  he  knew  all 
the  copies  by  heart;  but  he  could  n't  do  a  horse 
which  he  did  n't  have  no  copy  for.  I  asked  her 
could  n't  he  get  somebody's  horse  to  be  a  copy. 
But  she  said  how  could  he  lay  a  horse  down  on  a 
board  and  mark  him  out  and  besides  a  horse  had 
too  many  different  sides  to  him.  Anyways,  she 
said  somebody's  horse  would  n't  do  because  this 
had  to  be  better  than  a  real  horse.  She  said  Jean 
was  making  him  up.  Well,  I  got  into  an  argument 
about  it,  and  she  did  n't  make  out  what  she 
claimed.  But  she  stuck  to  it  she  was  right  any 
ways.  Maybe  she  was  too;  only  you  could  n't 
prove  it. 

Just  when  I  had  got  done  looking  around  and 
talking  and  was  back  in  the  door  where  I  ought  to 
'a'  been  there  come  in  a  young  man  from  the  back. 
I  guess  he  was  about  twenty-five  years  old  and 
was  Jean;  he  was  dark  complected,  too,  and  had  a 
little  black  moustache— it  was  n't  very  big  yet. 
And  then  I  found  out  what  her  name  was.  It  was 
Louise.  He  called  her  that  and  asked  if  she  had  n  't 
better  get  off  the  horse  and  run  away  home  because 
the  folks  might  want  her.  But  she  was  n't  very 
anxious  to  go  and  leave  the  horse,  so  he  reached 
up  and  took  her  down.  But  she  stayed  awhile  to 
see  him  carve  and  I  hung  around,  too. 

He  did  n't  mind  me  watching;  I  guess  he  was 
used  to  it.  First  he  took  a  little  crooked  chisel 


448  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

and  he  rubbed  it  light  and  quick  on  an  oil-stone 
and  went  to  work  on  the  head.  There  was  n't 
much  to  do  on  it,  as  far  as  I  could  see,  but  he  kept 
finding  a  little  here  and  there— mostly  on  the  nos 
trils,  which  he  got  so  that  they  was  most  breath 
ing.  Between  times  when  he  was  looking  at  it  he 
would  keep  passing  his  fingers  along  its  nose  and 
over  its  nostrils  till  he  seen  and  felt  how  it  could 
be  better;  you  'd  think  he  was  coaxing  the  horse 
right  into  shape. 

Louise  and  me  got  so  interested  watering  him 
that  she  forgot  she  ought  to  go  home;  so  when  he 
thought  of  it  he  told  her  again.  When  she  went  I 
went  too.  She  was  going  back  up  the  alley  the 
way  I  come,  anyhow;  so  I  walked  along  beside 
her. 

' '  Is  he  your  brother  ? "  I  says. 

'  *  I  have  n  't  got  any  brother, ' '  she  says.  ' '  Have 
you  got  any  ? ' ' 

1 '  I  have  got  six, ' '  I  says.    '  *  We  were  all  boys. ' ' 

' '  Then  you  have  n 't  got  any  sisters.  Neither  have 
I.  I  have  n't  anybody.  Have  you  got  any  other 
folks?" 

"Yes;  I  have  got  plenty,"  I  says.  "Where  are 
you  going  to  ? " 

' '  I  am  going  home  now, ' '  she  says. 

"You  just  told  me  you  did  n't  have  any  folks," 
I  says. 

"I  mean  real  folks,"  she  says.  "How  many 
folks  have  you  got  ? ' ' 

"I  never  counted  them  up,"  I  says.  "They  run 
off  into  cousins  and  aunts.  You  would  have  to 
have  some  folks,"  I  says. 


LITTLE  LOUISE  449 

''No,  I  have  n't,"  she  says.  "But  they  are  most 
like  real  folks.  They  took  me  in. ' ' 

Well,  we  got  to  arguing  considerable  about  it. 
It  did  n't  get  done  till  we  was  out  of  the  alley  and 
half-way  to  the  river.  Then  I  seen  how  it  was. 
Her  mother,  which  was  all  she  had  left,  took  sick 
and  died  about  three  years  ago.  From  what  I 
could  make  out  her  father  was  no  good  and  some 
thing  become  of  him.  And  we  kept  on  a-going 
towards  the  river. 

"Then  them  other  people  are  your  folks  now?" 
I  says. 

"Yes;  they  let  me  live  with  them,"  she  says. 
"But  the  Sisters  would  'a'  took  me  in,  too.  They 
are  awful  good  and  wanted  me.  But  I  would  n't 
want  to  go  off  to  a  place  and  be  a  deaf  and  dummy 
or  something,  would  you?" 

* '  You  bet  I  would  n  't, "  I  says.  ' '  I  would  go  and 
be  a  sailor  first." 

"I  would  n't  want  to  be  all  alike  and  walk  in  a 
row,  would  you?"  she  says. 

' '  Not  unless  I  was  a  regular  soldier,  I  would  n 't. 
Then  I  would,"  I  says.  "And  so  you  told  them 
you  would  n 't. " 

"Oh,  I  only  cried,"  she  says.  "I  did  n't  know 
anything  to  say.  So  then  Manuelo  come  and  said 
I  need  n't  cry  and  took  me  home.  So  I  went  and 
belonged  with  her." 

' '  Manuelo  ! "  I  says.  ' '  Do  you  mean  Manuelo — ' ' 
But  right  there  I  made  myself  shut  up. 

"Why,  do  you  know  her?"  she  says.  And  she 
looked  at  me  surprised.  I  seen  I  most  give  myself 
away. 


450  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

"No,"  I  says,  "I  don't  know  her,"  I  says. 

' '  We  pretend  she  is  my  big  sister, ' '  she  says. 

' '  Has  Manuelo  got  a  ma  ? "  I  says. 

''Of  course  she  has  got  one,"  she  says. 

"What  is  her  name?"  I  says. 

"Do  you  mean  what  do  I  call  her?  I  just  call 
her  Mis'  Effie.  She  says  I  could  call  her  ma. 
But  I  don't.  She  ain't." 

*  *  What  is  both  of  their  names  together  ? "  I  says. 

"Valdes,"  she  says. 

It  was  them. 

Right  away  I  seen  I  would  never  'a'  thought 
to  ask  her.  Here  I  had  been  detecting  two  weeks 
and  right  when  I  was  taking  a  rest  from  it  she 
up  and  tells  me  about  it.  And  if  it  was  n't  for 
that  I  would  'a'  gone  away  and  missed  them;  I 
never  thought  she  had  anything  to  do  with  it. 
I  was  mighty  glad ;  but  it  kind  a'  surprised  me  and 
I  would  rather  I  had  found  them  when  I  was 
looking.  But  I  guess  it  did  n't  make  no  real  dif 
ference;  I  had  come  across  them.  I  seen  I  would 
have  to  tend  to  business.  I  was  so  interested  in 
her  and  the  horse  I  would  never  'a'  thought  they 
had  anything  to  do  with  it. 

"Let  us  go  and  get  some  ginger  cookies  and  eat 
them.  I  have  got  lots  of  money,"  I  says. 

When  I  said  that  she  took  me  away  up  the  street 
and  showed  me  the  bakery  place.  It  was  an  old 
place  with  little  panes  of  glass  that  had  "acco" 
on  one  window  and  "ars"  on  the  other;  I  guess 
the  fellows  around  there  had  a  bad  pitcher.  And 
when  the  panes  was  put  in  again  business  was  so 


LITTLE   LOUISE  451 

bad  it  did  n't  pay  to  have  the  rest  of  the  words 
put  in.  But  it  did  n't  make  no  difference  any 
ways;  anybody  would  know  what  it  meant.  She 
liked  ginger  animals  the  best;  and  they  had  all 


The  edge  of  the  river  " 


kinds.  She  took  a  horse  which  was  two  for  five 
cents.  And  I  took  the  other  one. 

"Let  us  go  and  let  our  feet  hang  over  and  look 
at  the  river, ' '  I  says. 

"Let  us  save  them  up  till  we  get  there,"  she 
says.  "I  am  going  to  start  on  his  tail  first."  So 


452  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

we  done  it.  And  while  we  was  going  I  thinks  to 
myself  I  will  have  to  ask  her  things. 

It  was  a  nice  place  to  sit  at  the  edge  of  the 
river;  the  weather  was  pretty  bright  and  clear  for 
early  in  winter;  so  we  let  our  feet  hang  over  the 
river  and  watched  the  sun  busting  out  and  shin 
ing  down  on  it.  There  was  n't  much  doing  around 
there  except  a  whistle  which  you  could  tell  it  was 
an  ocean  steamer  because  it  sounded  so  big  and 
deep.  And  then  she  come  and  passed  us  away 
out  in  the  middle  with  just  a  little  smoke  coming 
from  her  three  red  stacks  in  a  row  behind  each 
other.  I  have  seen  the  Speed  do  more  with  either 
one  of  her  stacks  than  that  three  all  joining  their 
smoke  together.  It  was  the  big  French  liner  start 
ing  out  for  Havre.  There  was  a  couple  of  cat- 
boats  too,  but  you  would  hardly  notice  them  where 
it  was  so  wide ;  and  then  there  come  a  tug  with 
a  brig  which  it  was  taking  down  to  give  it  a  shove 
out  into  the  Gulf.  I  liked  to  watch  it. 

''What  did  your  mother  die  of?"  I  says. 

"She  did  n't  die  of  anything.  She  just  took 
sick  and  died, ' '  she  says. 

"Is  she  out  in  that  cemetery,  too?"  I  says. 

'  *  Yes ;  they  took  her  out  there.  She  is  in  one  of 
the  brick  places  where  it  is  all  alike  in  a  row. ' ' 

"I  seen  that  place;  it  makes  the  fence.  I  was 
out  there, ' '  I  says. 

' '  I  was  out  there  once, ' '  she  says. 

I  seen  she  was  n  't  in  any  hurry ;  when  I  was  all 
through  with  my  horse  she  had  n't  no  more  than 
started  on  hers.  She  only  took  little  bites  off  dif- 


LITTLE  LOUISE  453 

ferent  places  and  kept  saving  it  up  and  choosing 
what  she  would  eat  next  so  it  would  last  long.  I 
did  n't  do  that;  I  ate  it  up.  I  got  to  watching  her 
and  come  to  a  stop  for  a  while. 

"Who  is  Jean?"  I  says. 

"Why,  you  saw  him,"  she  says.  "You  saw  him 
making  the  horse." 

' ' And  he  is  n 't  your  brother  at  all? " 

"Oh,  no!    He  is  Manuelo's  beau." 

"Oh!"  I  says.  "Does  he  get  lots  of  altars  to 
make?" 

' '  Oh,  he  does  n 't  make  them !  It  is  old  Pierre 's 
place  and  he  can  make  them  all  himself.  Jean  is 
only  making  the  horse.  He  does  it  mostly  nights; 
and  sometimes  he  gets  a  chance  daytimes.  Jean 
works.  Old  Pierre  can  carve  flowers  and  things, 
but  that  is  all.  He  never  took  in  a  horse  before. 
So  when  he  got  it  he  sent  for  Jean. ' ' 

"Oh!"  I  says. 

"One  time  Jean  made  two  angels  for  money. 
But  he  did  n't  like  the  first  one  good  enough  to 
put  gold  on;  so  Manuelo  kept  it  and  we  have  it. 
I  think  it  is  a  good  angel.  It  is  saying  its  prayers. 
The  two  he  did  good  are  in  a  lodge;  there  is  one 
kneeling  on  each  side  up  in  front.  They  come  out 
better  than  anybody  ever  thought  he  could  do. 
But  he  does  n't  own  a  place  and  do  carving;  he 
works.  He  carves  anyways.  Some  day  he  is  go 
ing  to  try  and  get  a  chance  to  make  horses  and 
men  like  General  Jackson. ' ' 

"I  seen  that,"  I  says.  "That  is  what  they  call 
a  sculpture." 


454  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

'•'Yes,"  she  says.  "His  brother  was  one;  but  he 
died.  He  was  older  than  Jean  and  went  across 
the  ocean.  Jean  says  he  could  do'  just  as  good  if 
he  had  a  chance  to  practise.  This  horse  is  going 
away  up  on  top  of  a  church  down  in  South  Amer 
ica.  When  it  is  done  it  is  going  to  be  all  covered 
with  gold  and  he  is  going  to  get  five  hundred  dol 
lars  for  it.  Then  maybe  him  and  Manuelo  will 
get  married.  Don't  you  think  he  ought  to  make 
it  a  good  horse  ? ' ' 

"That  is  good  pay,"  I  says. 

"Yes,"  she  says.  "Everybody  thinks  it  is  just 
as  good  a  horse  as  General  Jackson's.  Only  ours  is 
wood. ' ' 

1 '  What  does  he  do  regular  ? "  I  says. 

"He  paints." 

* '  What  on  ?    Wood  or  iron  ? "  I  says. 

"He  does  n't  paint  that  way.  He  paints  pic 
tures.  And  he  is  a  sword-etcher.  He  works  where 
they  make  things  for  Mardi  Gras,  and  lodges  and 
soldiers  and  everybody  that  marches.  He  paints 
pictures  on  satin  banners  and  puts  names  on  fancy 
swords  and  does  everything  like  that.  But  he 
does  n't  like  it.  He  says  that  kind  of  painting 
work  is  n't  good.  So  at  home  he  does  what  he 
wants  and  is  always  practising.  He  makes  draw 
ings  of  people  that  are  ready  to  go  in  swi.iiming." 

"Oh!"  I  says.  "I  thought  he  was  the  other 
kind  of  a  painter." 

But  I  did  n  't  tell  her  I  knew  one.  After  she  got 
started  I  did  n't  have  to  ask  her  much.  She  kept 
on  and  told  me;  that  way  I  found  out  more  and 
more. 


LITTLE  LOUISE  455 

But  it  did  n't  amount  to  nothing.    Mrs.  Valdes 

just  kept  boarders  when  she  could  get  some.    Her 

and  Manuelo  did  the  work  and  Louise  helped  to 


The  tailor 


wipe  the  dishes.  But  it  was  hard  to  get  anybody 
to  come  along  out  there;  it  was  n't  a  good  place. 
Their  main  boarder  was  an  old  tailor;  he  did  n't 
have  to  work  no  more  and  he  had  his  big  heavy 
machines  stored  in  the  attic.  They  was  n't  any 


456  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

use  no  more,  but  he  was  the  kind  that  would  n't 
part  with  anything  unless  he  got  a  good  price. 
He  owned  the  house  they  lived  in.  And  he  owned 
the  furniture  too.  Before  they  come  there  they 
had  a  place  which  was  in  a  nicer  place  but  did  n't 
pay.  So  after  a  while  things  got  worse  and  they 
lost  their  furniture.  That  is  how  they  come  to  make 
a  bargain  with  the  tailor  which  was  looking  for 
somebody.  He  got  his  board  free  and  was  took 
care  of  and  everything  for  the  rent.  Well,  they 
thought  it  was  a  good  thing  for  them  at  first;  but 
it  was  n  't.  You  see  they  had  to  get  enough  board 
ers  to  keep  him  good  and  take  what  was  left  over  for 
themselves ;  but  it  was  hard  to  get  the  boarders. 

The  tailor,  which  was  big  and  heavy  and  strong 
and  used  mostly  to  sitting  down,  just  staid  around 
the  house  and  let  the  time  pass.  Between  meal 
times  he  would  sit  mostly  outside  on  the  second- 
story  porch  in  his  big  chair  and  look  down  at  the 
old  market-place;  you  'd  'a'  thought  he  would  get 
tired  doing  that  all  the  time,  but  he  did  n't.  He 
was  pretty  pop-eyed  and  stupid  looking  and  had 
a  fat  nose  that  you  would  think  was  a  kind  of 
blue ;  anyways,  that  is  what  Louise  said.  She  said 
I  ought  to  'a'  seen  the  end  of  his  nose.  He  did  n't 
ever  say  much  except  when  he  wanted  something; 
he  just  come  to  the  table  regular  and  looked  hard 
at  the  victuals  and  ate  his  meals.  That  was  all 
he  cared  to  do.  He  did  n't  have  to  make  clothes 
no  more  or  think  about  anything. 

They  had  to  do  all  the  worrying.  Some  ways  it 
was  the  same  for  them  as  if  they  was  working  out. 


LITTLE  LOUISE  457 

But  it  did  n't  seem  so  much  like  working  out  be 
cause  Manuelo  and  her  ma  had  a  whole  house  and 
was  together.  And  Jean,  which  was  Manuelo 's 
beau,  did  n't  know  but  what  they  was  doing  pretty 
good. 

Sometimes  things  run  pretty  close  to  the  edge. 
Sometimes  they  did  n't  have  much  left  for  them 
selves  after  they  had  fed  the  tailor  and  the  others ; 
but  they  had  to  keep  up  with  the  bargain.  Yester 
day  they  thought  they  was  going  to  have  some  roast 
beef.  Then  the  tailor  called  for  a  second  plate ;  but 
that  left  some  anyway  for  them.  And  just  then  the 
young  lady  that  comes  in  sometimes  for  dinner— but 
they  could  n't  tell  when— opened  the  door  and  sat 
down  at  the  table.  And  so  they  did  n  't  have  any  of 
the  beef.  They  had  to  guess  pretty  close  about  them 
things ;  and  if  they  did  n 't  guess  right  they  would 
eat  less  of  something  and  make  it  come  even. 

Mis'  Effie  used  to  think  that  if  they  kept  trying 
they  could  get  ahead  and  make  a  raise  that  would 
land  them  in  a  place  of  their  own  again  where  they 
could  do  better.  But  they  did  n 't  get  ahead  and  Man 
uelo  kept  growing  bigger  and  bigger  till  now  she  was 
a  young  lady;  and  now  her  mother  had  'most  give 
up  that  idea.  All  she  cared  for  now  was  to  keep 
a-going  and  have  a  parlor  and  a  place  to  raise 
Manuelo  right  till  something  become  of  her. 

Louise  told  me  all  about  everything;  but  it 
did  n't  amount  to  much.  I  guess  I  could  'a'  found 
out  more.  But  I  did  n't  know  what  it  was;  so  I 
did  n't  know  what  questions  to  ask.  So  I  just 
took  what  come.  And  after  a  while  Louise  had 


±58  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

kept  nibbling  round  the  shape  of  her  horse  till  he 
was  near  gone ;  and  then  she  swallowed  the  middle. 
Then  we  sat  and  just  looked  at  the  river.  She 
did  n't  say  no  more  for  awhile  and  neither  did  I. 
She  had  come  to  a  stop  and  was  thinking  about 
something.  But  after  a  while  she  went  back  to 
where  we  commenced  in  the  first  place  and  started 
to  talk  again. 

''Did  you  go  all  through  the  cemetery  when  you 
was  out  there?"  she  says. 

"I  did  n't  get  off  into  it.  I  just  seen  it,"  I 
says. 

"Did  you  see  the  place  that  is  all  along  like  a 
brick  wall— with  the  little  doors?" 

"Yes,"  I  says.  "Them  are  the  ones  that  make 
the  fence." 

"That  is  where  she  is,"  she  says.  "She  is  one 
of  them." 

"There  is  a  lots  of  them,"  I  says. 

"Did  you  see  them  taking  anybody  out  of  them 
when  you  was  there  ? ' '  she  says. 

"No;  I  did  n't  notice  any.  I  just  went  past 
swift,"  I  says. 

"Do  you  think  they  will  take  her  out,  too?" 
she  says.  "It  is  most  three  years  now.  Some 
times  I  am  afraid  they  will  take  her  out.  Therl  she 
won't  be  anywhere  at  all.  Do  you  think  they 
would?" 

1  i  I  don 't  know, ' '  I  says.  * 1 1  guess  they  would  if 
her  time  was  up. ' ' 

"That  is  what  I  think,  too,"  she  says.  "But 
don't  you  think  maybe  they  would  leave  her 
there?" 


LITTLE  LOUISE  459 

"I  don't  know,"  I  says.  "Maybe  they  would  if 
you  seen  them  about  it.  Sometime  I  am  going  out 
there  and  look  at  it. ' ' 

"I  wish  I  could  go,  too,"  she  says.  "I  was  out 
there  once. ' ' 

' '  Why  don 't  you  go  ? "  I  says.  ' '  And  why  don 't 
you  ask  ?  That  is  the  way  to  find  out  things. ' ' 

"Mis'  Effie  don't  ever  take  me  out  there.  And 
Manuelo  says  for  me  not  to  think  about  them 
things.  So  I  don't  say  anything  any  more.  She 
says  they  won't  ever  take  her  out.  But  they  do 
take  them  out.  I  know  about  it. ' ' 

I  seen  what  she  was  thinking  about.  She  was 
afraid  they  would  take  her  out  and  shove  her  down 
with  the  other  bones  and  get  her  mixed  up. 

"Maybe  they  will  just  leave  her  be,"  I  says. 

"Mis'  Effie  told  me  it  don't  make  any  difference, 
anyways.  Because  the  rest  of  her  is  in  heaven. 
But  I  would  always  want  to  know  where  she  is. 
They  say  I  must  n't  think  about  it.  So  I  don't 
let  them  know.  But  they  do  take  them  out.  I 
know  about  it. " 

"If  it  was  me  I  would  just  find  out.  I  would  go 
out  and  ask  the  boss. ' ' 

"Did  you  pay  your  fare  out?"  she  says. 

"Of  course,"  I  says.  "That  ain't  nothing.  I 
have  got  more  money  than  that  now. ' ' 

1  i  I  wish  I  could  go  out  when  you  do, ' '  she  says. 

"If  I  knew  you  I  would  let  you  go  along.  I 
would  n't  care." 

"You  could  take  me  on  the  steam  cars;  could  n't 
you  ? ' '  she  says. 


4£0  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

"Of  course,"  I  says.  "And  pay  your  fare, 
too." 

"I  wish  I  knew  you,"  she  said. 

But  I  guess  she  did  n't  think  she  would  ever 
know  me  because  I  lived  up  North  and  was  a 
steamboater.  She  asked  a  lot  of  questions  about 
me  and  I  told  her  some.  And  then  she  remembered 
all  of  a  sudden  that  she  ought  to  go  home. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 

THE  MARCH  OF  TIME 

WAS  going  back  the  same 
way,  so  we  went  along  to 
gether.  She  went  right  down 
the  river  road  till  we  was 
most  to  the  bell  on  its  pole ; 
then  she  turned  away  from 
the  river  and  we  kept  on 
across  the  old  market-place. 
And  pretty  soon  she  pointed  ahead  to  where  she 
lived.  It  was  in  one  of  the  three-storied  houses — 
mostly  solid-looking  old  brick  houses  that  had  win 
dows  which  come  right  down  to  the  floors  and 
opened  like  doors  on  hinge?  so  that  you  could  step 
out  on  the  lath-work  verandas  which  is  called  gal 
leries.  You  could  sit  up  in  the  gallery  and  watch 
if  anybody  went  past.  Her  house  was  most  up  to 
the  edge  of  the  sidewalk,  with  one  stone  step  up  to 
the  door. 

While  she  was  a-pointing  a  woman  come  out  of 
the  door ;  she  had  a  two-handled  basket  on  her  arm. 
When  Louise  seen  that  she  waved  her  hand  and 
called  out,  "Oh,  Mis'  Effie!"  and  said  she  was 
going  to  market,  too;  then  she  hurried  up  and 

461 


462  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

did  n't  pay  no  more  attention  to  me;  I  guess  she 
thought  I  would  follow  her.  But  I  did  n't;  I 
guessed  I  had  better  keep  to  myself.  So  I  went 
slow. 

Louise  took  the  basket  herself  and  went  along. 
They  turned  and  come  around  the  lower  end  of  the 
little  square  towards  the  river,  and  when  they  got 
to  the  river  road  they  turned  again  towards 
town.  I  was  going  to  take  that  way  back,  too,  so 
I  waited  till  they  had  got  a  piece  ahead  and  then  I 
started  up.  I  went  pretty  near  as  slow  as  I  could, 
but  I  kept  getting  nearer.  Once  I  pretty  near 
come  up  to  Louise.  Then  I  went  awful  slow  to 
give  them  a  chance.  Louise  was  walking  behind 
with  the  basket.  After  a  while  she  noticed  that  I 
was  coming  but  was  n  ?t  catching  up ;  so  then  she 
motioned  to  me  and  called.  Mis'  Effie  looked  back 
to  see  who  she  was  calling;  and  when  she  seen  it 
was  me  she  did  n't  bother  about  it.  So  then  I 
caught  up  as  far  as  Louise  and  stayed.  She  gave 
me  one  of  the  handles  of  the  basket  which  had  a 
lid,  too,  and  I  helped  her  carry  it.  It  was  n't 
heavy  at  all ;  I  could  'a '  muscled  it  out  on  one 
finger,  but  she  liked  us  to  carry  it  together.  I  told 
her  I  could  do  it  myself,  but  she  would  n't  have  it 
that  way ;  so  we  went  on  and  kept  talking— mostly 
about  the  basket. 

After  a  little  while  we  come  up  with  a  big  drove 
of  bronze  turkeys  and  a  man  with  a  stick  which 
was  all  going  to  market,  too.  So  we  kept  going 
along  with  them.  Right  away  they  reminded  me 
of  something  to  eat  again  and  I  wished  Christmas 


THE  MARCH  OF  TIME  463 

was  here ;  but  it  was  four  or  five  weeks  off  yet.  I 
get  hungry  awful  easy.  Louise  said  she  would 
rather  have  it  New  Year's,  because  that  was  when 
you  get  presents.  I  pointed  out  that  she  was 
wrong  and  we  got  to  arguing  about  it.  She  stuck 
to  it  that,  anyway,  you  get  your  presents  on  New 
Year's;  Christmas  was  only  a  holy  day.  I  did  n't 
like  to  fight  about  it  when  Mis'  Effie  was  there, 
so  I  give  it  up ;  I  did  n  't  say  no  more.  And  after 
that  we  got  to  picking  out  the  ones  we  liked  best. 
I  took  first  choice  and  got  the  best  one  in  the  drove ; 
he  marched  along  in  front  like  a  soldier  and  had  a 
fine  big  tossel  sprouting  right  out  of  the  middle  of 
his  chest  and  hanging  down  in  front;  it  looked 
like  he  had  got  a  badge  for  being  so  big.  But  it 
was  n't  really  that;  it  was  because  he  was  a  gob 
bler.  Louise  got  one  pretty  near  as  good.  Any 
way,  she  was  satisfied. 

* '  Mine  looks  like  he  had  gold  on  him ! ' '  she  says. 

' '  He  is  kind  of  polished  up  in  places, ' '  I  says. 

"  Is  n 't  he  a  pretty  brown  ? ' '  she  says. 

"You  bet!"  I  says.  "Their  feathers  are  fine. 
But  I  would  rather  have  mine  brown  clean  through 
— with  gravy."  But  she  said  she  would  rather 
keep  hers  to  look  at.  So  we  kept  going  along  with 
them  and  talking  about  Christmas  and  how  the 
turkeys  was  all  going  to  be  killed  and  everything 
like  that.  Mis'  Effie  looked  at  them,  too;  I  bet 
she  wished  she  had  one.  And  a  couple  of  times 
she  looked  around  at  us  but  did  n't  pay  much  at 
tention  to  me ;  I  guess  she  thought  I  was  a  partner 
of  Louise  and  was  only  helping  to  carry  the  basket. 


464  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

While  we  was  going  along  I  kept  looking  at  her 
mighty  hard  behind  her  back;  I  could  n't  hardly 
believe  that  this  was  her  that  I  heard  the  story 
about.  You  see  I  had  got  it  into  my  head  that  she 
was  a  young  lady,  because  I  only  knew  her  in  the 
story  Valdes  told.  And  I  had  forgot  to  have  her 
get  older.  When  you  don't  see  a  fellow  for  a  long 
time  you  keep  on  thinking  he  is  the  same;  and 
when  you  come  back  in  a  year  or  two  and  find  he 
has  grown  a  lot  and  has  on  long  pants  he  don't 
fit  your  mind  at  first  and  he  don't  suit  you.  You 
don't  think  about  them  things  between  times.  But 
after  a  while  you  get  used  to  him.  It  is  funny 
that  people  don't  get  older  in  your  mind.  You 
have  got  to  see  them  all  the  time  or  else  come  back 
once  in  a  while  and  set  your  mind  like  a  watch;  I 
guess  if  you  depended  on  other  people  you 
would  n't  ever  grow  up.  That  is  the  way  it  was 
with  her;  I  did  n't  know  anything  about  her  ex 
cept  what  she  was  years  ago  and  I  had  been  keep 
ing  her  young  all  the  time.  But  after  she  had 
turned  her  eyes  back  at  us  a  couple  of  times  she 
began  to  look  like  the  woman  that  had  done  all 
them  things  and  then  she  come  more  natural.  I 
could  kind  of  see  that  it  might  'a'  been  her  that 
was  a  young  lady  and  got  married  and  went  to 
live  in  a  vineyard.  Who  would  think  that  anyone 
that  maybe  started  out  little  like  Louise  would 
turn  out  to  be  keeping  boarders  like  that.  A  fellow 
would  n't  think  of  it  till  something  like  this  popped 
up.  It  would  be  the  same  with  Louise— when  you 
come  to  think  of  it. 

After  we  went  quite  a  distance  the  turkeys  turned 


THE  MARCH  OF  TIME  465 

a  corner  in  front  of  us  and  took  a  different  way. 
We  had  to  come  to  a  stop  while  they  was  passing; 
and  then  we  kept  on  till  we  got  to  the  market. 
Mis'  Effie  went  all  through  the  different  stalls 
and  looked  the  whole  market  over  for  the  best 
bargains  there  was  a-going  that  day.  There  was 
meat  and  vegetable  and  chicken  departments— lots 
of  every  kind.  And  besides  the  ones  that  had 
stalls  to  put  their  stuff  on  there  was  others  sitting 
in  between  with  their  stuff  beside  them,  mostly 
black  mammies  with  gumbo  to  sell  and  Choctaw 
Indians  with  medicine  roots  and  fancy  work;  and 
there  was  a  separate  part  to  buy  old  clothes  or 
anything.  You  can  talk  a  little  of  everything  in 
that  place— French  and  Spanish  and  Negro  and 
Indian  and  Jew;  and  each  of  them  sells  the  kind 
of  stuff  that  belongs  with  them.  And  Mis'  Effie 
was  so  used  to  it  she  could  make  them  understand 
when  things  was  too  high  in  most  any  language. 

I  was  n't  going  to  follow  her  all  over  that  way, 
but  Louise  made  me;  she  said  I  must  come  and 
help  because  now  the  basket  was  going  to  get 
heavier.  After  a  while  Mis'  Effie  decided  to 
take  a  little  roast  of  pork  that  suited  her. 
Then  she  looked  around  mighty  particular 
and  got  the  two-cent  bunch  of  soup  greens 
that  was  a  little  better  than  all  the  rest ;  and  after 
that  she  hunted  up  a  good  soup-bone  to  go  with  it. 
And  that  was  all;  it  was  n't  heavy  at  all.  When 
she  had  got  the  bone  put  in  she  closed  the  lid  of 
the  basket  and  latched  it  shut  and  took  it  up  and 
carried  it  herself. 

While  we  was  going  around  we  come  to  the  old- 


466  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

clothes  place;  and  all  of  a  sudden  Louise  pointed 
to  one  of  the  counters  and  said,  "Oh,  Mis'  Effie, 
there  is  Manuelo's  lace;  it  isn't  sold  yet."  Mis' 
Effie  went  and  looked  at  it.  Then  she  set  down 
her  basket  and  looked  at  it  closer.  And  while  she 
was  holding  it  up  and  making  it  into  different 
shapes  the  old-clothes  woman  come  over  and  asked 
if  she  had  decided  to  buy  it;  but  she  said  "No," 
she  was  only  looking  at  it  again.  It  was  marked 
ninety  cents.  I  guess  she  could  n't  'a'  bought  it, 
anyways,  because  she  only  had  seventeen  cents 
left;  I  seen  it  in  her  hand.  I  had  more  than  that 
myself.  She  looked  at  it  pretty  close  again  and 
then  hung  it  up  and  took  up  her  basket ;  and  then 
she  turned  to  Louise  and  told  her  she  had  better 
go  on  home  now  because  she  had  come  far  enough. 
Louise  said  she  was  n't  tired  but  Mis'  Effie  ex 
plained  to  her  that  it  was  because  she  had  got 
herself  all  mussed  up  playing  and  must  n't  follow 
her  any  farther.  She  would  n't  look  nice  to  folks 
following  her  up  Canal  Street. 

"People  would  think  I  was  very  careless  if  my 
little  girl  did  n't  have  her  hair  combed  or  her  good 
shoes  on."  So  she  patted  her  on  the  head  and 
fixed  some  hair  behind  her  ear  and  told  her  to  go 
back  home.  Then  she  said  good-bye  and  kept  on; 
and  Louise  and  me  turned  back  and  come  out  of 
the  other  end  of  the  market. 

"Where  is  she  going  now?"  I  says. 

"She  is  just  going  up  the  street.  She  will  walk 
up  and  down." 

"What  for?"  I  says. 


"  Mis'  Effie  went  and  looked  at  it 


468  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

"Maybe  to  get  a  boarder.  She  will  walk  up 
and  down  mostly  by  the  depot.  And  maybe  some 
body  that  has  just  got  off  the  train  will  ask  her 
about  the  streets  or  something.  Maybe  she  will 
get  to  talking  to  them  and  maybe  it  will  turn  out 
that  they  are  looking  for  a  place.  And  then  she  will 
just  speak  about  how  we  have  a  place  and  maybe 
they  would  make  up  their  minds  to  come.  But  Mis' 
Effie  would  n't  go  up  to  anybody  and  speak  to 
them  first,  because  that  would  n't  be  nice.  But  if 
she  got  to  talking  to  anybody  she  could  say  how  we 
have  a  place." 

"She  is  taking  her  chances,"  I  says. 

' '  One  time  we  did  get  a  boarder  that  way.  Mis ' 
Effie  was  just  coming  past  the  depot  and  not 
thinking  of  anything  and  somebody  asked  her 
something  and  they  turned  out  to  be  a  boarder. 
That  is  how  she  found  it  out.  Maybe  sometime 
somebody  will  ask  her  something  again. ' ' 

"What  she  ought  to  do  is  put  an  advertisement 
in  the  paper, ' '  I  says. 

"She  did  do  that  once.  She  put  it  in  two  days. 
But  none  of  the  people  turned  out  to  be  boarders1 
and  it  kept  on  costing  money;  so  we  could  n't  af 
ford  to  keep  it  up  that  way.  Manuelo  wrote  the 
piece  herself  and  it  read  nice  about  our  house  in 
print." 

She  remembered  just  how  it  went.  She  had  read 
it  so  many  times  that  she  knew  it  all  by  heart  and 
could  say  it  right  off  about  how  it  was  a  quiet 
and  retired  neighborhood  with  home  surroundings. 
I  guess  she  meant  it  was  pretty  dead  out  there  and 
nothing  doing. 


THE  MARCH  OF  TIME  469 

' '  Maybe  she  will  meet  one  now, ' '  she  says.  ' '  The1 
winter  races  are  going  now  and  there  are  people 
coming.  Some  of  them  race  men  has  lots  of  money 
and  pay  good  if  you  could  get  one  of  them."  So' 
then  I  seen  how  it  was. 

"How  did  Manuelo's  lace  get  in  that  place?"  I 
says. 

"It  is  n't  hers  yet,"  she  says.  "But  if  Mis' 
Effie  gets  a  boarder  maybe  she  will  buy  it.  That 
is  a  better  piece  of  lace  than  the  other  people  could 
'a'  bought  unless  they  was  rich.  It  is  a  piece  of 
REAL  lace;  Mis'  Effie  knows  them  real  things. 
And  it  would  be  good  for  Manuelo's  new  hat. 
Manuelo  looks  good  in  them  kind  of  things. ' ' 

Well,  that  was  n't  nothing  to  me;  so  I  did  n't 
say  no  more. 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 


THE  WAY  OF  A  WOMAN 

kept  walking  along  on 
the  edge  of  Canal  Street. 
She  seemed  to  be  going 
along  with  me ;  and  I  was 
n't  going  nowheres.  I 
could  n  't  think  of  no  more 
to  ask ;  I  did  n 't  know  any 
thing  to  find  out.  So  then 
she  started  asking  me 
things. 

"When  are  you  going 
to  the  cemeterie?"  she  says. 

"Some  time  when  I  feel  like  it,"  I  says.  "I 
can  go  whenever  I  want  to. ' ' 

'  *  Then  why  don 't  you  go  now  ? ' '  she  says. 
"What  for?"  I  says. 
1  i  Because, ' '  she  says. 

She  did  n't  say  no  more  but  kept  going  along 
with  me  up  the  street— we  went  along  kind  of  slow1 
together  and  just  mixed  up  with  things— and  after 
a  while  when  I  was  thinking  I  would  stop  and  give 
George  a  recess  she  come  to  a  flower  store  where 
it  was  all  full  of  colored  flowers.  So  then  she 
made  me  come  and  look  through  the  glass  at  them 

470 


THE  WAY  OF  A  WOMAN  471 

instead.  I  had  to  stand  pretty  long  and  let  her 
tell  how  nice  all  the  different  ones  was. 

' '  Oh,  would  11  't  it  be  nice  if  we  had  some  of  them 
to  take  along,"  she  says. 

'  *  Take  along  where  ? "  I  says. 

"Out  to  the  cemeterie,"  she  says. 

So  then  I  seen  what  she  was  tagging  around  after 
me  for. 

"Yes,  they  are  pretty  good,"  I  says. 

'  *  But  they  cost  lots  of  money, ' '  she  says. 

'  *  But  you  can  look  at  them  for  nothing, ' '  I  says. 
"And  smell  them,  too." 

"Only  you  can't  have  them,"  she  says.  "You 
can 't  pick  them  when  they  are  in  a  store  that  way. '  * 

"But  you  don't  need  to  have  them.  They  ain't 
like  ginger-bread  that  you  have  got  to  own  first," 
I  says.  "They  are  only  to  look  at  and  smell;  and 
ain  't  you  doing  that  now  ? ' ' 

* '  But  you  can 't  have  them, ' '  she  says. 

"Well,  what  is  the  USE  of  having  them?"  I 
says.  "Looking  and  smelling  don't  use  them  up 
none;  and  so  the  man  don't  care.  And  ain't  that 
all  he  sells  them  for?  Pshaw!"  I  says,  "flowers 
have  n't  got  no  more  sense  than  to  give  themselves 
away  all  the  time,  have  they?  Who  cares  who 
owns  flowers !  So  let  the  man  keep  them. ' ' 

"But  flowers  AIN'T  to  own,"  she  says. 

"Ain't  that  just  what  I  said?"  I  says. 

"But  I  did  n't  mean  it  THAT  way,"  she  says. 
"Flowers  ain't  to  own  at  all.  Flowers  are  to  give 
away.  And  how  can  you  give  them  away  if  they 
ain't  yours  first?" 


472  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

"Oh!"  I  says.  I  did  n't  say  no  more  at  first. 
Half  the  time  you  could  n't  answer  her  back.  But 
I  could  n't  buy  her  them  kind  of  flowers  with 
twenty  cents.  So  I  up  and  told  her  they  cost  too 
much  and  I  could  n't  give  them  to  her. 

' '  Oh,  I  did  n  't  mean  that  at  all ! "  she  says. 

"Ain't  that  what  you  just  said?"  I  says. 

"I  only  said  they  would  be  nice  to  take  along. 
I  meant  I  did  n 't  want  to  keep  them, ' '  she  says. 

"Oh!"  I  says. 

Well,  while  we  was  starting  to  argue  about  it 
the  flower  man  was  standing  in  the  door;  and  I 
took  notice  that  he  was  listening  and  starting  to 
smile.  Then  he  came  out  and  put  his  finger  under 
her  chin  and  looked  at  her  some  more.  Then 
what  does  he  do  but  go  into  the  store  and  come  out 
again  and  give  her  a  second-hand  bouquet.  It 
was  a  pretty  good  one,  too.  It  had  paper  lace  all 
around  the  edge  and  was  fitted  in  a  shiney  white- 
paper  funnel  with  a  tin-foil  handle ;  it  was  one  of 
them  high-toned  bouquets.  The  flowers  was  only  a 
little  wilted;  I  guess  it  made  them  tired  to  be  all 
fixed  discomfort  able  with  a  white  collar  on.  She 
took  it  mighty  quick  and  said  "Thank  you,"  and 
then  she  give  it  to  me  to  smell  it  and  say  how  nice 
it  was.  I  took  a  smell  and  handed  it  right  back  to 
her.  But  she  found  a  nice  place  in  it  and  give  it 
back  to  me  to  smell  some  more.  Well,  I  guess  I 
smelled  it  enough  that  time;  I  turned  it  around 
by  the  handle  and  smelled  clean  around  it  half  a 
dozen  times  at  a  whirl.  So  then  she  put  her  nose 
in  the  middle  and  smelled  right  down  into  them 


THE  WAY   OF   A  WOMAN  473 

and  then  she  picked  out  this  one  and  picked  out 
that  one  and  smelled  them  separate.  And  all  the 
time  I  had  to  keep  saying  how  each  one  was  nice. 
I  got  kind  of  sick  standing  and  going  on  about 
them  before  the  man ;  so  when  I  got  a  chance  I  told 
her  to  come  on  around  the  corner  and  we  would 
smell  it  by  ourselves.  So  she  said  good-bye  and 
done  it. 

Well,  now  she  had  flowers  and  so  they  had  to 
be  took  out.  I  seen  I  would  have  to  take  her  to 
the  cemetery.  She  had  a  way  about  her  that  she 
could  get  what  she  wanted.  She  did  n't  even  have 
to  ask  for  it.  So  I  says,  * '  Come  on ! "  and  we  went 
up  to  the  end  of  the  little  railroad  and  got  on. 

We  took  a  seat  and  sat  close  so  that  the  conduc 
tor  would  think  we  was  together.  I  did  n  't  have  to 
say  nothing;  he  just  took  a  look  at  her  and  gave 
me  back  a  nickel  out  of  my  dime.  When  she  seen 
how  I  took  my  money  right  out  and  paid,  she  said 
she  guessed  if  she  had  me  all  the  time  I  could  take 
her  'most  any  place  in  the  world  and  she  could  go 
all  over.  And  she  asked  me  if  I  could  n't.  So  I 
says,  "Yes."  And  then  she  said  she  was  much 
obliged  to  me  for  paying.  But  I  told  her  she 
need  n't  be. 

"I  did  n't  pay  for  you,  anyway.  You  go  free," 
I  says. 

"You  gave  him  the  money.  I  saw  you,"  she 
says. 

"But  we  go  two  for  five.  That  don't  count 
you,"  I  says. 

"But  if  you  was  n't  along  I  could  n't  go  two 


474  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

for  five, ' '  she  says.  And  she  tried  to  make  out  she 
was  n't  free  at  all. 

"I  would  'a'  had  to  pay  full  fare  just  the  same 
if  you  was  n't  along,"  I  says.  So  then  we  got  to 
arguing  about  it.  She  kept  sticking  to  it  that  she 
was  half ;  but  after  a  while  she  had  to  give  it  up 
so  as  to  watch  things  go  by.  Then  we  had  a  good 
time  all  the  way;  things  go  better  when  there  is 
somebody  to  show  them  to.  When  we  was  to  the 
cemetery  the  conductor  stopped  the  train ;  and  then 
we  got  off  and  let  it  go  ahead  again.  It  was  a 
pretty  fine  day  and  some  ways  I  was  glad  I  come. 

I  had  n't  never  been  out  there  before,  so  I  left 
it  to  her  to  find  the  right  place.  We  found  where 
you  get  in  and  then  we  went  along  through  one 
of  the  best  streets  where  it  was  all  little  stone 
fronts  on  each  side;  you  could  see  it  was  one  of 
the  high-toned  parts  where  the  rich  ones  lived.  I 
don't  mean  that;  what  I  mean  is  that  nobody  is 
buried  at  all  and  you  just  go  down  the  street  past 
the  little  doors  and  know  all  the  time  that  they  are 
inside.  There  is  some  rich  ones  inside  and  some 
poor ;  and  you  can  tell  easy  enough  which  is  which. 
The  rich  ones  are  in  the  good  neighborhoods  where 
it  is  stone  fronts  and  they  own  them  and  live  there 
all  the  time.  But  the  poor  ones  which  rent  are  in 
long  rows  along  the  common  streets,  and  every 
three  years  or  so  they  are  put  out  and  somebody 
else  moves  in;  a  fellow  would  think  maybe  that 
would  stop  when  people  is  dead  but  it  don't.  Not 
when  it  takes  houses  that  costs  money  to  build; 
then  it  keeps  working  just  the  same.  But  after 


THE  WAY  OF  A  WOMAN 


475 


"  <I  don't  see  it, "  she  says  " 


they  have  been  there  a  couple  of  years  and  it  don 't 
make  any  difference  to  them  any  more  they  throw 
them  away  with  the  rest  of  them  in  the  basement. 

We  did  n't  get  ahead  very  fast  because  we  kept 
stopping  to  look  at  the  different  ones  and  talk 
about  which  was  the  best.  There  was  n't  much 


476  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

doing  there  except  it  was  awful  quiet  and  you 
kept  a-thinking.  By  the  time  we  had  picked  out 
enough  we  had  gone  all  sorts  of  ways,  and  then 
she  come  to  a  stop  and  tried  to  think  out  where  she 
was.  But  she  had  got  all  mixed  up.  She  could  n't 
figure  out  where  she  was  going.  So  I  said  we  had 
better  look  for  the  boss  and  ask  him;  maybe  he 
could  look  her  ma  up  in  the  directory.  But  she 
did  n't  want  to  do  that;  she  wanted  to  take  the 
flowers  right  there  and  do  it  herself.  And  then  I 
seen  that  she  was  going  to  cry  because  things  had 
got  the  best  of  her. 

"I  would  know  it  myself  if  I  seen  it.  But  I 
don't  see  it,"  she  says. 

"I  thought  you  said  she  was  in  the  wall,"  I 
says. 

' '  She  is, ' '  she  says. 

"Which  wall?"  I  says. 

* '  The  one  that  is  nearest  to  the  cars, ' '  she  says. 

"Why  did  n't  you  say  that  at  first?"  I  says. 

"Because  you  did  n't  ask  me,"  she  says.  "I 
thought  I  was  going  to  come  to  it."  So  then  I 
seen  I  had  better  take  charge  myself. 

* '  Come  on ! "  I  says ;  and  so  we  took  a-hold  of 
hands  and  she  changed  her  mind  about  crying  till 
she  would  see  if  I  found  it.  I  was  glad  she  did  n't 
get  good  and  started.  It  was  n  't  nothing  to  find ; 
there  was  a  whole  row  of  them  built  together  along 
that  side.  Anybody  passing  outside  would  think 
it  was  just  a  blank  wall ;  but  when  you  was  inside 
you  could  see  what  it  was.  They  would  'a'  had 
to  have  a  wall,  anyways,  so  them  being  it  made 
their  rent  cheaper,  I  guess. 


THE  WAY  OF  A  WOMAN  477 

"We  went  along1  till  we  come  to  it.  Her  ma  was 
up  in  the  second-story  row  and  it  was  too  high 
for  me  to  reach.  And,  besides,  she  wanted  to  do  it 
herself.  So  I  had  to  get  up  some  way  to  do  it; 
and  there  was  n't  nothing  around  there  to  stand  on. 
And  she  stood  and  waited  for  me  to  think  up  what 
I  was  going  to  do  about  it.  I  thinks  to  myself, 
"What  is  the  use  of  going  to  all  this  trouble  if 
maybe  she  ain't  in?"  But  right  away  I  seen  that 
as  long  as  Louise  was  satisfied  I  better  not  say  any 
thing  about  it  and  maybe  start  her  up. 

She  stood  and  waited  a  while  and  all  I  could 
think  of  was  a  ladder ;  and  then  all  of  a  sudden  she 
says,  '  *  Why  don 't  you  help  me  ? " 

Well,  I  was  surprised;  there  I  had  been  stand 
ing  like  a  dummy  and  never  thought  of  a  boost. 
But  I  bet  if  she  had  been  a  fellow  we  would  'a' 
had  it  done  already.  I  took  the  bouquet  and  fixed 
it  with  some  shoe-string  so  it  would  hang,  and  then 
I  h'isted  her  up;  and  between  the  two  of  us  we 
was  tall  enough.  It  took  her  a  long  time  and  she 
was  pretty  heavy  and  did  n  't  know  how  to  stand ; 
I  bet  if  I  had  n 't  traveled  with  a  circus  I  would  n 't 
'a7  knowed  how  to  balance  her.  But  after  a  while 
she  hollered  that  she  was  done,  and  I  let  her  down 
all  right. 

The  bouquet  hung  upside  down  and  did  n 't  look 
right  to  me;  I  seen  right  away  it  was  n't  the  right 
kind.  It  was  a  kind  of  a  theater  bouquet  and 
was  n't  solemn  enough.  But  she  did  n't  seem  to 
know  the  difference;  so  I  did  n't  say  nothing. 
And  then  she  did  n't  want  to  go  away  right  off. 
She  wanted  to  stay  around  where  she  could  look 


478  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

at  it  once  in  a  while  and  think  how  fine  it  was. 
She  was  pretty  satisfied. 

"Ain't  you  strong!"  she  says.  "You  could  lift 
me  up  any  place,  could  n't  you?"  She  thought  I 
was  pretty  good.  But  that  was  n't  nothing.  That 
is  one  of  the  easiest  brother  acts  there  is.  I  could 
'a'  walked  around  with  her  on  my  shoulders  if  she 
had  knowed  how  to  stand.  But  I  would  n't  'a' 
tried  it  with  her ;  she  would  n  't  'a '  knowed  how  to 
fall.  Then  she  would  'a'  cried  and  blamed  me. 
But  one  thing  good  about  her  is  that  she  would  'a' 
let  me.  She  seen  I  knew  how. 

"I  won't  try  nothing  with  you,"  I  says.  "But 
I  don't  mind  doing  some  myself."  So  then  I  done 
a  few  easy  ones— standing  on  your  head  and  throw 
ing  cart  wheels  and  such.  She  thought  that  was 
awful  wonderful.  But  that  was  n't  nothing.  So 
after  I  got  limbered  up  and  sweaty  I  guessed  I 
would  do  some  backs.  It  was  nice  and  level  around 
there  and  a  good  place  to  do  things.  I  had  got 
so  I  could  do  a  back,  when  I  did  n't  miss.  Of 
course  I  missed  some.  But  that  ain't  because  I 
did  n't  know  how;  anybody  has  got  to  take  time 
to  practise.  The  only  thing  was  that  when  I  was 
doing  a  back  I  would  sometimes  come  down  in  the 
middle  of  it.  But  that  don't  make  no  difference  if 
you  know  how  to  fall.  Falling  is  what  you  have 
got  to  learn  first  in  a  circus ;  you  have  got  to  know 
how  to  land  right  any  ways  you  come  down.  Then 
you  can  try  it  again.  Falling  is  one  of  the  main 
things  and  I  was  good  at  that.  First,  I  done  a 
few  flip-flaps;  but  that  was  n't  nothing.  I  had 


THE  WAY  OF  A  WOMAN  479 

learned  the  rest  of  a  flip-flap  from  Stubbs  and 
most  of  a  back.  So  then  I  whaled  in  and  done 
half  a  dozen  backs,  and  three  of  them  turned  out 


"She  was  awful  surprised" 

good.  She  was  awful  surprised;  she  said  she 
did  n't  know  persons  could  jump  over  themselves 
like  that.  Well,  I  did  do  better  than  I  expected; 
I  seen  I  was  feeling  good,  and  that  was  n't  nothing. 
I  guessed  I  would  do  some  leaps  and  roll-ups. 


480  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

Them  is  when  you  run  and  jump  right  out  into 
the  air  and  come  down  on  the  back  of  your  neck. 
Everybody  thinks  you  are  going  to  kill  yourself 
but  you  don't.  You  would,  though,  if  you  did  n't 
know  how.  All  there  is  to  it  you  kind  of  turn  and 
come  down  just  so  and  make  a  rocker  out  of  your 
back  and  it  rocks  you  right  up  on  your  feet  again. 
You  don't  want  to  land  all  on  the  back  of  your 
neck  at  all  but  you  do  a  roll-up.  Well,  I  done  a 
couple  of  medium-sized  ones  and  they  went  good. 
She  was  awful  scared  and  did  n  't  want  to  look  for 
fear  something  might  happen.  So  then  I  sailed  in 
and  done  a  big  one.  But  there  was  something  in 
the  grass ;  when  I  rolled  up  I  got  a  stone-bruise  on 
my  backbone.  So  then  I  guessed  I  had  better  quit. 

"Let  us  play  mumblety-peg  awhile,"  I  says. 
So  we  done  it. 

After  a  while  I  got  tired  of  that ;  I  did  n't  really 
want  to  play  it  so  very  long  in  the  first  place.  But  she 
liked  to  be  out  there  so  well  she  did  n't  ever  want 
to  stop  and  go  home  at  all ;  she  kept  on  taking  her 
turns  over  again  and  then  I  seen  she  had  n 't  better 
fool  with  a  knife  so  I  took  it.  And  after  I  shut  it 
up  and  put  it  in  my  pocket  she  showed  me  how  to 
make  chains  out  of  grass  and  how  to  wreathe 
wreaths  till  I  got  awful  interested;  she  was  the 
best  I  ever  seen.  And  then  we  got  to  hunting  all 
over  for  better  stuff  to  make  them  out  of. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII 


SAM  TAKES  ON  A  LOAD  OF  RESPONSIBILITY 

DON 'T  know  how  it  happened 
but  I  guess  it  must   V  been 
after    dinner-time    when    we 
first  got  out  there ;  anyways, 
it  must  'a'  been  pretty  late. 
All  I  know  about  that  is  that 
I  was  kind  of  hungry  when 
I  first  got  out— but  you  can't 
go  by  that ;  a  fellow  is  liable 
to  be  hungry  most  any  time. 
Anyways,  after  a  while  when 
we  was   crawling   along  in 
the  grass  I  looked  up  to  see 

what  the  sun  had  gone  behind  and  it  was  going  down. 

The  place  where  we  put  the  bouquet  was  n't  in  sight. 

You  see  we  had  kept  coming  along  and  snooping 

around  in  the   grass  and  just   going  somewhere 

else;  that  is  why  I  did  n't  know  where  we  was  at. 

She  said  I  had  better  take  her  home  now ;  and  then 

she  just  left  it  to  me. 

The   main  thing   was   to   get   out   first.      So   I 

did  n't  lose  no  time  but  started  straight  ahead; 

I  knew  if  I  done  that  we  would  come  out  some- 

wheres.     We  got  kind  of  mixed  up ;   and  while 


31 


481 


482  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

we  was  trying  to  get  out  it  kept  getting  dusker 
and  dusker.  I  was  n't  what  you  would  really  call 
scared— not  as  bad  as  some  would  be.  But  no 
body  likes  to  be  fooling  around  after  dark  in  a 
strange  graveyard;  even  if  there  ain't  ghosts. 

After  a  while  we  come  to  the  wall ;  but  it  was  n't 
at  a  place  where  you  could  get  out.  So  I  seen  the 
best  way  was  to  follow  along  it.  So  we  kept 
a-going  and  I  could  see  the  rows  of  them  all  along 
ahead  of  us  with  the  little  doors  shut  on  them  like 
ovens.  When  you  go  along  that  place  after  dark 
there  is  dead  people  all  pointing  their  feet  at  you 
through  the  brick  wall.  Of  course  you  can't  ex 
actly  see  them;  but  you  know  that  they  are,  any 
ways.  Maybe  I  would  n't  'a'  minded  it  if  they 
had  n't  'a'  had  doors;  that  makes  it  different. 
Doors  only  shut.  Maybe  they  was  n't  all  full; 
they  build  them  beforehand  and  know  somebody 
will  need  them,  the  same  as  flats;  so  maybe  some 
of  them  was  empty.  I  kept  thinking  that ;  but  you 
can't  tell  which  is  which  so  that  don't  do  no  good 

She  took  a-hold  of  my  hand  and  I  told  her  not  to 
be  scared.  But  she  said  she  was  n't  scared  at  all; 
she  was  n't  afraid  of  anything  because  I  was 
along.  So  I  did  n't  say  nothing.  After  that  I 
did  n't  care  much  if  I  was  scared;  so  I  took  out 
my  knife  and  opened  the  blade;  it  is  best  to  be 
good  and  ready  and  then  you  don't  care  what  hap 
pens.  We  kept  going  right  ahead  and  after  awhile 
we  come  to  the  gate  and  got  out.  Then  we  hurried 
up  and  ran  to  catch  the  train. 

When  we  got  back  to  town  it  was  night  already 


SAM  TAKES  A  LOAD  OF  RESPONSIBILITY    483 

and  Canal  Street  was  lit  up ;  but  when  we  come  to 
the  river  road  it  was  plum'  dark  except  sometimes 
a  lamp  post  which  did  n't  light  up  nothing  but 
itself  as  if  it  was  only  a  signal.  The  ships  all  had 
out  their  signal  lights,  too,  along  the  edge  of  the 
river  as  far  as  you  could  see,  and  there  was  some 
green  and  red  coming  up  the  middle  and  twinkling 
in  the  water;  I  guess  it  was  a  sailing-boat.  You 
could  n't  see  nothing  except  to  steer  by,  so  all  I 
had  to  do  was  to  follow  the  signal-lights  till  we 
put  in  at  the  market ;  after  that  I  would  know  the 
turns.  It  was  a  good  thing  I  did,  too,  because  she 
was  so  sleepy  from  riding  that  she  did  n  't  care  where 
she  lived.  When  we  got  into  the  road  I  took  her 
by  the  hand  so  that  she  would  n't  get  separated 
from  hanging  behind;  she  was  too  sleepy  to  say 
much.  She  come  along  pretty  slow;  or  maybe  it 
was  that  distance  is  farther  when  you  ain't  got 
anybody  to  talk  to.  And  after  she  was  used  to 
me  towing  her  along  she  could  go  'most  asleep 
and  keep  walking  the  same  as  if  she  was  on  wheels. 
I  would  'a'  paid  her  fare  but  there  was  n't  no  cars. 
Sometimes  I  would  say  something  to  her  in  the 
dark,  but  all  she  knew  was  that  she  was  coming 
along.  Sometimes  she  got  to  towing  harder  like 
we  was  in  a  current,  but  she  kept  a-coming;  and 
after  awhile  I  come  to  the  dark  market-place  and 
crossed  over.  And  when  I  was  in  the  middle  of 
it  and  got  to  thinking  of  her  house  I  seen  right 
away  that  maybe  I  ought  n't  to  'a'  took  her  in  the 
first  place. 

So  I  come  to  a  stop. 


484  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

When  I  stopped  it  kind  of  woke  her  up  a  little 
and  she  wanted  to  know  what  I  stopped  for. 

"It  ain't  nothing,"  I  says.  "I  just  stopped  to 
think."  So  then  she  stood  and  let  herself  be 
sleepy  again.  I  guessed  it  would  be  better  for  me 
not  to  go  clear  to  the  house.  I  would  stop  a  piece 
away  and  let  her  go  on  ahead.  And  I  would  stand 
and  watch  till  she  was  in. 

"Oh,  Louise!"  I  says. 

"Huh? "she  says. 

"Here  we  are.  We  are  here  by  the  old  bell 
now. ' ' 

"I  know  it,"  she  says. 

"S'pos'n'  they  say  something  to  you  about  not 
coming  home?" 

1 '  I  know  it, ' '  she  says. 

"Wake  up,  now.  I  want  to  tell  you  something," 
I  says.  So  then  she  let  go  of  my  hand  to  rub  her 
eye. 

"What  is  it?"  she  says. 

"S'pos'n'  they  say  something  to  you  about  not 
coming  home?  What  you  want  to  do  is  to  tell 
them  that  you  had  to  go  out  with  a  fellow  that  is 
going  to  get  a  boarder." 

"What  boarder?"  she  says. 

' '  The  boarder  I  am  going  to  bring.  I  was  going 
to  tell  you,  but  I  forgot  to  think  about  it.  Pay 
attention  now  so  you  can  have  your  story  made 
up." 

"You  are  only  making  believe,"  she  says. 

"  No,  I  ain  't, "  I  says.    "  He  is  a  real  boarder. ' ' 

Well,  when  I  said  boarder  she  woke  right  up; 
she  come  to  as  if  it  had  got  daylight  all  of  a  sud 
den. 


SAM  TAKES  A  LOAD  OF  RESPONSIBILITY    485 

* '  Can  you  get  him  for  sure  ? ' '  she  says. 

"Sure,"  I  says.  "I  know  a  fellow  that  is  a 
boarder ;  and  he  will  come. ' '  And  right  away  she 
wanted  to  know  about  him;  I  did  n't  think  she 
could  come  so  wide  awake.  So  then  I  went  on 
and  told  her  how  the  fellow  was  a  friend  of  mine 
and  how  he  had  been  looking  for  a  place  out  this 
way  and  had  told  me  to  get  him  one,  and  whatever 
I  could  think  up. 

When  she  seen  it  was  so  she  started  right  in 
talking  and  tending  to  business;  she  was  awful 
glad  and  excited  to  think  she  had  got  a  boarder  for 
them.  She  started  to  praise  the  place  right  up. 
And  when  she  found  I  was  going  to  come,  too, 
she  could  n't  hardly  believe  it.  She  told  me  all 
that  the  newspaper  said  about  the  place,  too;  she 
knew  it  by  heart.  So  I  had  to  tell  her  it  did  n't 
make  any  difference,  because  we  was  satisfied  with 
the  place  and  now  she  had  better  go  on  home. 
And  then  she  wanted  me  to  come  along. 

* '  What  is  the  use  ? "  I  says.  * '  I  would  only  have 
to  walk  that  far  back.  You  go  on  ahead  and  I  will 
stand  and  watch  that  nobody  hurts  you. ' ' 

So  she  started  away  and  I  stood  still  to  let  her 
get  a  good  distance  ahead.  But  when  I  was  just 
going  to  follow  and  come  a  little  nearer  to  the 
house  she  turned  right  around  and  run  back  to  me. 

"What  are  you  scared  of?"  I  says. 

'  *  Whenever  you  and  him  are  coming, ' '  she  says, 
"ring  the  bell."  And  she  pointed  up  to  show 
she  meant  the  bell  on  the  pole. 

"What  for?"  I  says. 

"So  I  can  have  time.    When  I  hear  it  I  can  run 


486  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

and  put  a  match  to  the  grate  and  get  it  blowed  up 
and  burning  by  the  time  you  are  here ;  because  we 
don't  keep  it  burning  between  times.  You  must 
always  do  that  and  then  I  can  get  his  things  out 
and  have  them  ready  for  him  whatever  way  he  is 
used  to." 

"He  ain't  used  to  nothing.  What  things  do  you 
mean?"  I  says.  "He  don't  bother  much  with 
things." 

So  she  starts  in  and  explains.  The  old  tailor 
always  done  that ;  it  was  a  kind  of  a  far-off  door 
bell.  It  was  Louise  got  it  up,  so  he  would  always 
be  suited.  Then  she  could  have  the  grate  blowed 
up  and  his  slippers  sitting  beside  each  other  and 
the  little  table  drawed  up  with  his  tobacco  and 
things  on  it.  He  was  such  a  slow  walker  on  ac 
counts  of  his  feet  that  she  had  a  pretty  long  notice ; 
and  so  he  always  rung  the  alarm  of  himself. 

' '  All  right ;  I  see  how  it  is.    Go  on  home  now. ' ' 

So  she  done  it. 

But  she  had  n't  got  no  farther  this  time  when 
she  turned  around  and  come  running  back  again. 

"What  is  it  now?"  I  says. 

"And  I  forgot  to  tell  you,"  she  says.  "We 
have  a  tub  in  the  court  which  the  cistern  leaks 
into;  the  alligator  can  come  and  board  there.  He 
will  be  good  and  comfortable.  I  know  what  alli 
gators  likes  and  can  take  care  of  them." 

"All  right,  "I  says. 

"Be  sure  and  get  the  man  to  come,"  she  says. 
"It  is  a  quiet  and  retired  locality  in  the  most  in 
teresting  part  of  the  city  with  all  home  accommo 
dations.  Be  sure  and  come. ' ' 


SAM  TAKES  A  LOAD  OF  RESPONSIBILITY    487 

I  seen  right  off  she  was  reciting  out  of  the  news 
paper.  So  I  told  her  I  'd  remember  it. 

"That  is  all  right,"  I  says.  "It  is  just  what 
he  is  looking  for.  So  go  on  home  now  and  don't 
come  back  no  more." 

That  time  she  done  it.  I  kept  watch  till  I  seen 
the  door  open  and  the  light  bust  out  on  her;  then 
I  turned  and  scooted. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX 


CLANCY  GETS  ALL  BASES  COVERED 


JIEN  I  got  home  Clancy  was 
in  bed  with  the  light  turned 
down  and  snoring.  When  I 
woke  up  he  was  gone  to 
work.  So  I  went  and  got 
breakfast,  which  I  knew  the 
best  ten-cent  place,  and 
then  I  hunted  him  up  on 
the  other  smokestack  where 
he  was  painting.  When  I 
)  got  to  where  Rags  was 
watching  on  the  sidewalk 
and  inquired  my  way  up 

to  the  roof  he  had  already  h'isted  himself;  and 
he  was  away  up  to  the  top  of  it  on  accounts  of 
him  just  commencing  the  job.  And  when  he 
heard  what  it  was  that  I  was  hollering  up  the 
stack  to  him  he  h'isted  himself  clean  down  to  the 
roof  again  to  hear  it  private. 

Clancy  said  I  done  good.  He  said  he  was  n't 
really  expecting  that  I  would  find  them  any  of  the 
time;  I  could  see  he  was  pretty  surprised  at  first. 
And  then  he  let  out  that  all  he  thought  was  that 

488 


CLANCY  GETS  ALL  BASES  COVERED   489 

I  might  as  well  put  in  my  time  that  way  and  there 
was  a  chance  I  might;  but  he  was  expecting  to  go 
at  it  himself  when  he  got  his  next  job  done. 

He  was  awful  interested;  and  after  I  told  it  to 
him  quick  I  told  it  to  him  a  little  longer.  Well, 
after  he  knew  the  main  part  he  took  a  chew  and 
leaned  against  the  stack  with  his  legs  crossed  and 
started  to  ask  me  questions  about  all  the  little 
things— 'specially  Louise.  And  pretty  soon  I  be 
gan  to  notice  something;  so  I  up  and  told  him  he 
need  n't  get  smart  about  it.  You  see  at  first  he 
was  serious  and  sensible;  but  afterwards  he  was 
only  pretending  he  was.  He  was  awful  deceitful 
some  ways.  He  was  the  kind  that  could  pretend 
he  was  n't  smiling  and  keep  right  on  asking  you 
things ;  and  you  could  n  't  tell  when  he  was  starting 
to  do  that  until  it  began  to  come  out  of  his  eyes. 
But  I  seen  it  all  right.  He  kept  on  asking  more 
about  how  I  took  care  of  her  and  done  the  flip-flaps 
and  things,  and  I  told  him  if  he  was  going  to  get 
smart  about  it  I  would  throw  up  the  whole  busi 
ness.  I  did  n't  tell  him  no  more.  Then  he  had 
to  smile  and  that  give  him  away;  and  when  he 
seen  that  he  sat  down  in  his  tackle  and  started  to 
h'ist  himself  up  again.  And  I  went.  But  just  as  I 
was  going  down  through  the  hole  in  the  roof  he 
stopped  h'isting  and  held  himself  with  one  hand 
and  hollered  down  to  me. 

"That  is  all  right,  kid,"  he  says.  "You  done 
good."  And  he  said  for  me  to  meet  him  at  dinner 
time,  which  he  knew  I  would  have  to  do,  anyways, 
because  I  did  n't  have  no  money.  He  always  tried 


490 


PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 


to  smooth  things  over  like  that;  but  I  did  n't  say 
nothing.    He  could  n't  do  it  with  me. 

I  went  on  down  and  sat  on  the  sidewalk  with 
Rags  and  he  was  awful  glad  to  see  me;  dogs  is 
different  from  people.  When  Clancy  come  down 

for  dinner  he  did  n't  try 
to  get  smart  any  more, 
so  I  did  n't  say  nothing. 
Anyways,  I  did  n't  have 
any  money.  We  went 
to  the  market  restaurant 
and  took  our  different 
^talls;  I  was  glad  they 
was  private.  And  after 
I  had  ate  dinner  I  thinks 
to  myself,  "What  is  the 
use  letting  on ;  he  has  n  't 
got  no  more  sense."  So 
I  let  it  pass. 

"Come  on,"  he  says, 
and  he  led  the  way  up 
the  street  and  into  a  tele 
graph  office.  He  took  a 
piece  of  telegraph  paper 

and   spit    on    his   pencil    and    wrote    a   telegraph 
right  off : 

-"Kid  with  me  in  N.  0.    People  found.    If  any 
body  asks  tell." 

Then  he  signed  it  and  addressed  it  to  the  captain 
of  the  Speed;  he  had  to  ask  me  the  name  of  the 
town  again.  Then  he  shoved  it  in  to  the  man  and 
paid  and  we  started  back. 


"«  Kid  with  me  in  N.  O. 


CLANCY  GETS  ALL  BASES  COVERED   491 

1  'Tell  who?"  I  says. 

"Valdes, "  he  says.  "It  's  up  to  us  to  find  him 
next,  ain't  it?" 

' '  Of  course, ' '  I  says. 

' '  Well,  that  covers  that  end  of  it, ' '  he  says. 

"Maybe  he  won't  think  it  worth  while  to  be 
looking  for  me,"  I  says.  "Maybe  he  has  come  back 
to  St.  Louis  and  went  to  see  me  and  found  I 
was  n't  there  no  more." 

"Like  as  not,"  he  says.  "But  there  's  a  chance 
he  '11  go  to  the  boat  again,  and  it  's  up  to  us  to  tend 
to  it."  Then  he  hurried  back  to  the  compress  and 
up  the  stack. 

That  night  when  we  was  going  to  our  room 
after  supper  he  stopped  and  bought  two  sheets  of 
paper  with  blue  lines  on  it  and  an  envelope;  and 
then  he  sat  down  and  wrote  off  a  letter  to  explain 
the  telegram.  Afterwards  he  let  me  read  it  while 
he  was  ruling  off  the  pencil  lines  on  the  envelope; 
it  did  n't  say  nothing  much  except  that  I  was 
down  there  with  him  and  that  if  a  man  inquired 
for  me  it  was  really  him  that  was  wanted  and  he 
would  be  at  the  above  address  which  he  put  down 
at  the  bottom.  Then  when  he  got  it  off  he  sat 
down  to  take  a  rest.  After  that  we  would  move. 
But  he  would  get  our  mail  at  the  same  place. 

"That  don't  suit  me,"  I  says.  "We  will  have 
to  do  something  more  than  that." 

"Did  n't  he  say  he  was  going  to  get  down  this 
way?"  he  says. 

"Yes,"  I  says.  "And  maybe  he  has  been  here. 
When  I  told  him  you  was  going  to  see  me  in 


492  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

New  Orleans  last  winter,  and  that  you  was  down 
here  before,  he  said  that  he  was  going  to  get  down 
this  way  himself.  And  that  is  all." 

"Well,"  he  says,  "the  next  thing  for  you  to  do 
is  to  hang  around  the  depot  considerable." 

He  talked  like  I  was  working  for  him.  And 
that  was  all. 

' l  Ain  't  you  going  to  do  nothing  ? "  I  says. 

"I  will  kind  of  keep  my  eye  open,"  he  says. 

"By  rights  I  am  all  done,"  I  says. 

' '  How  so  ? "  he  says. 

"I  was  to  get  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  for 
finding  you.  And  I  done  it.  And  you  was  to  get 
the  same  for  finding  them.  And  I  done  it.  That 
makes  five  hundred. ' ' 

"That  is  the  job  you  took,"  he  says. 

"Yes,  "I  says. 

"Well,  the  hardest  part  of  some  jobs  comes 
afterwards. ' ' 

"What  is  that?"  I  says. 

"Collect,  "he  says. 

"We  have  got  to  find  him.  Them  people  needs 
him  bad, ' '  I  says. 

"Yes.  And  they  ain't  no  good  to  us  without 
him,"  he  says. 

All  he  seemed  to  think  was  that  I  should  sit  by 
that  train  platform  all  the  time  without  any  more 
sense  than  a  cat  watching  a  rat  hole.  I  told  him 
so.  He  up  and  says  that  was  it  exactly.  I  had 
it  just  right,  he  said. 

"The  thing  for  you  to  do,"  he  says,  "is  to  go 
to  that  old  wooden  depot  every  day  and  watch  the 
platform.  You  know  him  when  you  see  him." 


CLANCY  GETS  ALL  BASES  COVERED   493 

"I  did  n't  know  her  by  seeing  her,"  I  says. 
''And  you  would  have.  And  then  you  made  out 
I  was  the  best  one  to  find  her. ' ' 

"That  was  an  entirely  separate  instance,"  he 
says.  "We  have  got  to  catch  him  on  the  fly. 
Don't  you  see  the  difference^" 

I  kind  of  seen  a  difference  so  far  as  it  went. 
But  it  did  n  't  suit  me. 

"That  is  all  right,  but  it  don't  suit  me  at  all," 
I  says.  "There  ought  to  be  something  different 
to  do  about  a  thing  like  this. ' ' 

"Look  a'  here,"  he  says;  and  he  picked  up  the 
pencil  and  took  the  other  piece  of  paper  like  he 
was  going  to  prove  it  to  me.  "Look  a'  here,"  he 
says ;  * '  there  is  one  thing  we  know,  and  that  is  that 
he  intended  to  come  here  this  winter." 

"Yes,"  I  says. 

"Another  thing  we  know— he  has  n't  found  them 
yet." 

"Yes,"  I  says. 

"And  there  is  just  three  ways  to  it.  Either  he 
has  come  and  gone  or  he  is  here  now  or  he  is 
coming. ' ' 

I  said  "Yes"  to  that  too. 

"Well,  if  he  has  come  and  gone  he  certainly 
won't  find  them  anywhere  else;  so  you  can  bet  he 
will  look  for  you  at  the  boat  to  take  another 
chance  on  me.  Then  he  will  get  the  letter  with 
our  right  address  and  come.  That  is  one  way  to 
settle  it." 

"Yes,"  I  says. 

"If  he  ain't  here  yet  the  only  thing  he  can  do 
is  come;  and  if  he  is  here  now  the  only  thing  he 


494  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

can  do  is  go.  So  if  you  watch  the  platform  you 
will  be  likely  to  get  him  coming  or  going.  Do  you 
understand  that?  And  if  you  miss  out  maybe  I 
can  get  him  where  he  is  stopping." 

' '  Are  you  going  to  help  1 "  I  says. 

"Did  n't  I  say  I  would  keep  my  eye  open?  So 
there  's  you  watching  the  depot,  and  there  's  me 
keeping  track  of  the  hotel  registers  and  the  boat 
lists— and  there  's  the  letter  we  have  sent  off. 
We  have  got  all  our  bases  covered ;  and  we  '11  catch 
him  on  the  fly." 

Well,  I  liked  it  better  after  he  said  it  like  that. 
He  was  one  of  them  kind  that  just  wants  to  go 
ahead  and  do  things;  I  guess  that  is  why  he 
could  n't  get  along  with  the  boss.  Somebody  had 
to  make  him  think  them  out. 

"All  right,"  I  says.  So  he  said  that  was  all 
there  was  to  it ;  it  was  just  a  job. 

He  slung  the  brussels  kit  on  his  shoulder  and 
left  it  to  me  to  bring  the  rest,  which  was  only  his 
good  suit  and  his  other  shirt  in  their  valise;  I 
did  n  't  have  nothing.  After  we  turned  off  of  Canal 
he  struck  out  along  the  river  road  so  lively  that  I 
could  hardly  keep  up— 'specially  with  the  valise 
bumping  against  my  leg;  so  I  threw  it  up  on  my 
shoulder  and  done  like  him  and  that  went  better ;  but 
after  he  got  good  and  started  he  kept  putting  on 
steam  and  I  had  to  keep  telling  him  to  hold  himself 
back.  He  said  it  always  made  him  go  faster  to 
have  a  load,  which  I  said  he  was  like  old  Speed, 
some  ways;  anyhow,  he  went  at  it  like  it  was  a 
job  of  walking  he  had  took.  That  was  because  it 
was  work,  I  guess;  he  did  n't  do  that  way  when 


CLANCY  GETS  ALL  BASES  COVERED   495 

he  was  just  out  walking.  I  kept  up  all  right; 
but  I  was  glad  when  we  got  to  the  old  cobblestoned 
place.  Then  I  dropped  the  valise  and  told  him  to  stop. 

"Hold  up,"  I  says.  "I  have  got  to  ring  the 
bell.  And  afterwards  you  must  slow  up." 

"What  is  this?— playing  steamboat?"  he  says. 

"No,"  I  says.  "This  here  is  sensible.  Them  is 
the  arrangements  I  made." 

"What  arrangements?"  he  says. 

"When  they  hear  the  bell  they  will  know  we 
are  coming.  And  they  will  get  things  ready." 

"Did  you  rent  the  whole  neighborhood?"  he 
says;  and  he  stopped  and  looked  at  all  the  houses 
around. 

He  wanted  to  get  up  an  argument  about  it,  but 
I  jumped  up  and  got  the  end  of  the  rope  at  the 
first  grab.  I  could  n't  really  ring  it  because 
when  I  come  down  with  my  feet  on  the  ground 
the  rope  and  me  was  so  short  that  the  bell  stood 
upside  down  and  could  n't  be  rung.  So  I  just 
let  go  of  the  rope  and  it  turned  a  plum'  summerset 
and  gave  a  couple  of  rings  itself. 

"Now  it  is  all  right,"  I  says.  "That  is  to  give 
them  time.  And  whenever  I  give  you  the  bell 
when  we  are  passing  here  you  must  slow  up ;  if 
you  don't  you  will  spoil  the  whole  business." 

"All  right,  Captain,"  he  says.  And  then  he 
done  it. 

We  had  n't  gone  on  no  more  than  ten  steps 
when  I  seen  the  door  go  open  up  the  street  and 
then  Louise  come  out  on  the  step  all  excited  and 
called  out  "Here  they  come!— Oh,  here  they 
come ! ' '  and  right  away  she  run  in  again. 


496  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

''Now  don't  forget,"  he  says  to  me,  "to  keep 
your  mouth  shut." 

"I  will,"  I  says. 

"And  if  anything  happens  that  there  needs  to 
be  any  lying  done,  I  will  tend  to  it  myself." 

"All  right,"  I  says. 

"But  there  won't  need  to  be,"  he  says.  "They 
don't  know  anything  about  this  business.  So  all 
you  have  to  do  is  to  forget  about  it." 

"But  they  will  maybe  get  to  asking  me  ques 
tions.  How  did  I  get  down  here— how  did  I  come 
to  be  with  you— how  did  I  come  to  find  this  place — 
how  every  old  thing?" 

' '  Tell  them  the  TRUTH, ' '  he  says.  ' '  Only  drop 
the  other  business  clean  out  of  it.  Then  they  will 
see  you  are  telling  the  truth.  Truth  is  facts.  And 
when  you  are  lying  always  stick  to  facts.  Some 
people  try  to  make  up  facts ;  but  that  takes  brains. 
And  it  ain't  necessary." 

"All  right,"  I  says. 

"And  don't  get  it  into  your  head,"  he  says— 
and  he  stopped  to  tell  it  to  me— "Don't  get  it  into 
your  head  that  the  little  girl  don 't  count. ' ' 

When  we  had  talked  that  far  we  was  to  the 
stone  step  already;  and  the  door  was  shut.  I 
would  'a'  thought  they  would  be  at  it  and  waiting 
for  us;  because  they  heard  the  bell  and  knew  we 
was  coming.  But  we  had  to  knock;  then  they 
waited  a  little  while  to  be  polite  and  come  and 
answered  it.  And  while  I  was  standing  there 
thinking  about  lies,  I  seen  that  was  one,  too. 
There  is  all  kinds  of  them. 


CHAPTER  XL 


AN  EVENING  AT  HOME 

>HEN  they  had  waited  and 
give  themselves  time  to 
come  Mrs.  Valdes  opened 
the  door  and  wanted  to 
know  if  we  was  the  peo 
ple  ;  and  we  said  we  was. 
Well,  she  did  n  't  remem 
ber  Clancy  at  first;  she 
did  n't  know  it  was  him 
that  stopped  with  her  a 
few  days  a  couple  of 
years  ago.  But  she  knew 
him  right  away  when  he 
told  her  about  it  and  she 
was  pleased  to  see  him.  Clancy  said  to  me  after 
wards  that  he  would  n't  even  'a'  told  her  that 
if  it  was  n't  that  she  might  remember  him  later 
on— which  she  would  catch  him  in  a  lie  of  not 
saying  anything.  They  work  all  kinds  of  ways. 
Clancy  was  smart  that  way;  he  could  head  off  a 
lie  further  than  most  people  could  see  it  coming. 

When  we  got  into  the  parlor  Louise  was  on  her 
knees  before  the  fire  trying  to  pump  it  up  the 
chimney  with  the  bellows;  it  had  taken  longer 


32 


497 


498  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

than  she  thought  and  maybe  was  n't  going  to  burn 
at  all ;  it  flickered  and  fooled  and  would  n  't  go  up 
the  chimney  and  she  would  stop  to  catch  her 
breath  and  put  her  hair  behind  her  ear  again  and 
look  to  see  if  it  was  making  up  its  mind.  I  got 
awful  interested,  so  I  took  the  job  away  from  her 
and  worked  the  bellows  myself;  and  Clancy  was 
took  up-stairs  to  look  at  our  room.  I  worked  it 
hard  and  kept  a-blowing  with  my  face  down  to  the 
fire  till  I  was  all  sweaty  and  did  n 't  need  no  fire ; 
but  I  made  it  come.  Then  I  was  so  warm  I  turned 
the  bellows  the  other  way  and  fanned  myself  some 
— a  bellows  is  awful  handy,  because  you  can  blow 
yourself  hot  or  cold  with  it— and  while  I  was  doing 
it  Clancy  come  back  from  up-stairs  and  give  me  a 
look  that  I  put  them  down.  That  was  making  out 
he  did  n't  tell  me ;  it  was  another  kind  of  a  lie.  So 
I  done  it. 

There  was  a  young  lady  sitting  by  the  lamp 
reading  a  book;  I  guess  she  was  the  one  that  ate 
up  all  the  roast  beef.  Clancy  took  a  chair  and  sat 
down  by  the  corner  of  the  fire  and  pointed  out 
another  one  to  me.  So  I  took  it  and  sat  down  beside 
him.  The  wooden  angel  was  there ;  it  was  a  pretty 
good  one.  It  was  in  the  corner  with  its  hands 
crossed  on  its  breast  and  saying  its  prayers  all  the 
time.  We  all  kept  on  being  quiet;  nobody  said 
nothing. 

The  young  lady  was  reading  a  book  which  she 
turned  the  leaves  pretty  often.  I  got  a  look  at  the 
paper  cover  when  she  kind  of  lifted  it  up ;  it  was 
about  "The  Three  Muskeeters."  And  the  fellow 


AN  EVENING  AT  HOME  499 

that  wrote  it  did  n't  know  how  to  spell  them. 
Well,  them  and  gnats  is  both  hard  to  spell;  but  if 
I  did  n  't  know  how  I  would  n  't  write  no  book  about 
them.  She  kept  turning  the  leaves  and  when  she 
had  let  enough  time  go  so  that  it  would  look  as  if  it 
was  by  accident  she  got  up  and  went  out.  I  was 
getting  so  I  seen  into  lots  of  things  from  going 
with  Clancy.  So  then  Clancy  kind  of  limbered  up 
and  took  the  chance  to  throw  his  chew  in  the  fire ; 
it  sizzled  and  sputtered  and  then  got  quiet  again. 
He  had  forgot  and  brought  it  in  with  him  and  now 
I  bet  he  was  glad  it  was  gone ;  I  seen  him  shift  it  to 
his  other  cheek  away  from  the  young  lady.  And  just 
when  it  was  all  through  and  was  quiet  again,  Mrs. 
Valdes  come  to  the  door  and  asked  if  we  would  n't 
have  something  to  eat;  but  Clancy  said  "No,"  it 
was  so  late  we  had  both  had  supper.  But  I  guess 
she  thought  he  was  only  saying  it,  because  she  said 
we  must  have  some  coffee,  anyways,  and  she  went 
away  to  get  it.  Then  Louise  come  to  the  door. 
And  she  stood  there  and  smiled  right  at  us. 

"Look  a'  here,  Louise,"  I  says,  "where  is  my 
alligator  a-going.  Show  me  that  there  place. ' ' 

"All  right.  Come  along  with  me,"  she  says. 
"And  you  too.  You  can  come  along  too,"  she 
says,  meaning  Clancy. 

But  he  would  n't  go. 

"Aw,  come  along,"  I  says.  "See  him  swim. 
That  ain  't  going  to  hurt  nothing.  It  is  in  the  back 
yard." 

"Do  you  think,"  he  says,  "that  I  am  going  out 
there  through  their  kitchen  1 ' ' 


500  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

"Oh,  you  don't  have  to,"  she  says.  "I  '11  take 
you  out  through  the  passage.  I  will  show  you  the 
way."  So  when  me  and  her  both  went  against 
him  he  give  in. 

She  took  us  out  of  the  front  door  again  and  then 
through  a  high  narrow  board  gate  at  the  corner  of 
the  house  and  along  through  the  dark  between  the 
walls  of  the  houses  till  we  come  to  an  inside  yard. 
It  was  paved  with  brick  and  had  high  brick  walls 
all  around ;  the  yard  was  two  or  three  stories  deep. 
All  that  made  that  yard  out-of-doors  was  that  you 
could  look  up.  There  was  the  blank  side  of  the 
other  brick  buildings  around  and  joining  with  the 
brick  floor;  you  was  all  inside  of  brick  and  only 
that  passage  to  get  out  except  you  went  through 
the  door  of  their  kitchen.  You  could  look  up  out 
of  the  yard  and  see  the  stars  on  top.  And  when 
you  did  it  awhile  you  would  think  maybe  you 
come  along  and  fell  into  it. 

I  seen  what  would  be  a  good  way  to  build  a 
house.  All  you  would  need  to  do  is  to  get  a  place 
and  then  get  four  other  people  to  build  their  brick 
houses  around  the  place.  Then  all  that  would  be 
left  for  you  to  do  would  be  to  put  a  roof  on.  It 
would  n't  hardly  cost  nothing. 

There  was  n't  nothing  inside  the  yard  but  the 
cistern,  which  was  away  up  like  a  railroad  water- 
tank  and  the  tub  down  under.  The  kitchen  door 
was  a  little  open  and  there  come  out  a  streak  of 
light  and  a  smell  of  coffee.  It  made  me  awful 
hungry. 

I  untied  George  from  my  button  and  let  Louise 


AN  EVENING  AT  HOME  501 

take  him,  and  then  she  put  a  wash-board  slanting 
into  the  tub  of  water;  that  was  his  beach.  He 
could  come  out  of  the  water  to  take  a  rest  and  the 
wrinkles  of  the  board  would  n  't  let  him  slip ;  or 
he  could  lay  comfortable  and  take  a  sleep  where 
they  kept  the  soap.  Then  he  could  go  in  and  take 
a  swim  again.  I  seen  she  knew  all  about  alligators 
just  like  she  claimed;  she  done  it  good.  She 
made  him  do  things  so  that  Clancy  would  see  how 
it  worked;  and  he  had  to  stay  and  let  her  show 
him.  So  I  stood  where  I  could  kind  of  see  what 
they  was  doing  in  the  kitchen.  They  never  knew 
we  was  out  there. 

Mrs.  Valdes  was  doing  something  with  a  funny 
coffee-pot;  it  had  a  tin  cistern  which  she  put  into 
the  top  and  then  put  the  coffee  into  that.  And 
then  I  seen  Manuelo,  too.  She  come  writh  a  kettle 
of  water  and  stood  pouring  it  slow.  She  had  on  a 
black  dress  with  white  cuffs  and  a  white  collar 
that  shined  in  the  lamplight;  and  them  made  her 
look  dark  complexioned.  But  she  was  dark  com- 
plexioned  already.  It  is  funny  how  some  of  them 
dark-complexioned  people  can  be  so  good  looking, 
anyway.  She  was.  She  had  dark  hair  and  dark 
long  eyelashes  too— I  seen  that  because  she  was 
looking  down  at  the  water  pouring.  I  guess  she 
kind  of  took  after  Valdes  but  looked  like  her 
mother. 

When  she  had  enough  poured  out  she  went  away 
to  put  the  kettle  somewheres.  And  then  her  mother 
and  her  both  come  and  stood  by  the  coffee-pot, 
waiting  for  the  water  to  leak  through  the  little 


"She  was  looking  down  at  the  water  pouring 


AN  EVENING  AT  HOME  503 

cistern  and  be  coffee.  And  while  they  was  doing  it 
they  started  to  talk. 

' '  I  saw  that  piece  of  black  lace  again  yesterday, ' ' 
Mrs.  Valdes  says. 

Manuelo  did  n't  say  nothing.  She  just  stood 
and  looked  at  the  coffee.  And  then  Mrs.  Valdes 
started  it  up  again. 

"If  he  seems  to  like  it  here  well  enough  to  stay 
I  am  going  to  get  it  for  you, ' '  she  says. 

"Oh,  I  don't  want  it,  mother;  I  can  get  along 
without  it, ' '  Manuelo  says. 

"And  it  will  make  SUCH  a  beautiful  little  hat— 
the  way  you  have  of  fixing  things.  And  you  know, 
dear,  old  lace  is  all  the  nicer.  No  one  will  know 
but  it  was  some  that  we  had  left. ' ' 

"No,  you  must  n't  get  it,"  Manuelo  says.  "I 
really  don't  need  it.  I  can  fix  over  the  things  on 
the  old  hat." 

"And  if  Jean  gets  those  tickets  to  the  opera  it 
will  be  just  the  thing.  Black  lace  looks  so  well  on 
you  that  you  really  ought  to  have  a  great  deal 
of  it." 

"You  must  n't  think  of  such  a  thing.  I  can  get 
along  without  it,  mother.  The  old  feather  will  do 
again,"  Manuelo  says. 

"And  there  is  over  a  yard — for  only  ninety 
cents." 

' '  Over  a  yard ! ' '  Manuelo  says.  * '  A  person  could 
do  a  great  deal  with  that. ' ' 

Then  she  went  on  about  how  a  person  could  do 
like  this  with  it  and  how  a  person  could  do  like 
that  with  it ;  she  put  her  hands  up  to  her  head  and 


504  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

made  herself  a  hat  all  out  of  nothing.  I  could  tell 
she  would  know  just  how ;  each  one  of  her  fingers 
acted  out  just  how  it  would  be— I  could  most  see 
it  myself.  But  afterwards  she  said  she  was  only 
thinking  how  anybody  could  make  it;  but  she 
did  n't  want  it.  Well,  I  would  'a'  thought  she 
would  be  awful  glad  to  get  it.  But  she  up  and 
said  she  would  n't  have  it. 

'  *  And  I  am  sure  it  won 't  be  gone  for  a  few  days 
Not  many  come  there  that  will  see  what  it  is, ' '  her 
mother  says.  "But  you  must  n't  get  your  mind 
set  on  it.  Because  we  are  not  sure  yet  that  he  will 
stay." 

So  then  Manuelo  laughed  and  said  what  was  the 
use  of  talking  to  somebody  that  had  their  own  mind 
set.  And  then  she  patted  her  mother  on  the  back 
like  she  was  whipping  her  for  it.  But  right  after 
wards  she  give  her  a  kiss  over  her  eye  to  make  it  all 
right  and  then  dropped  the  whole  business.  The 
way  she  acted  you  would  think  she  was  her  ma's 
own  mother.  Girls  is  that  way.  Then  Mrs.  Valdes 
started  to  say  more— but  just  then  Clancy  got  tired 
fooling  with  Louise  and  the  alligator  and  told  me 
to  come  on. 

So  we  went  back  and  set  still  in  the  parlor  again. 
Rags  was  out  on  the  doorstep  sitting  and  waiting. 
I  told  Clancy  about  it  and  he  said  he  would  wait 
a  long  time,  because  I  must  n't  let  him  in.  He 
could  stay  out  on  the  doorstep  nights  and  watch. 
I  bet  if  Louise  had  been  there  she  would  'a'  got 
him  a  place,  too.  But  she  was  out  in  the  kitchen. 

So  while  she  was  gone  and  nobody  was  listening 


AN  EVENING  AT  HOME  505 

I  told  Clancy  what  I  heard  them  saying  about 
him.  He  just  listened  to  it  and  did  n't  say  noth 
ing;  I  thought  he  did  n't  care.  Then  Mrs.  Valdes 
come  and  showed  us  out  to  the  table.  He  did  n't 
really  want  nothing;  but  he  ate  considerable  and 
began  to  get  interested  and  say  what  good  cooking 
it  was;  he  said  the  coffee  was  just  the  way  he 
liked  it  and  the  cold  biscuits  was  just  grand.  I 
could  see  she  was  pleased;  and  right  away  I  seen 
through  his  talk.  But  she  did  n't  know  how  it 
come.  When  Clancy  made  up  his  mind  and  got 
started  he  could  lie  so  that  you  would  n  't  know  the 
difference.  We  had  pickles,  too. 

It  was  kind  of  chilly  on  accounts  of  it  being  al 
most  the  middle  of  winter  and  Mrs.  Valdes  said  it 
would  n't  be  nice  and  pleasant  for  us  to  sit  up  in 
our  room.  So  we  went  and  staid  quiet  in  the  parlor 
again. 

Clancy  took  out  his  paper  and  started  in  to  read 
the  sporting  part.  He  did  n't  even  talk.  Nobody 
was  around.  I  went  over  to  take  a  look  at  the 
other  side  of  the  wooden  angel ;  but  Clancy  told  me 
to  leave  things  alone.  Then  he  went  on  reading 
again  about  how  the  base-ball  teams  would  maybe 
be  next  summer.  Well,  I  set  down  again  and  kept 
it  up  awhile.  There  was  n 't  nothing  to  do  but  just 
think  up  something.  But  that  don't  take  long. 
Right  away  you  think  of  it  and  then  what  is  the 
use  if  you  can't  go  and  do  it  or  tell  nobody.  Some 
people  can  just  sit  and  think  thoughts;  but  I 
can't.  I  always  think  of  something  to  do.  I  went 
to  the  window  and  looked  out.  Rags  was  sitting 


506  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

right  there  waiting  and  hoping.  So  I  went  and  sat 
down  again.  But  dogs  can  beat  anybody  out  on 
that.  They  are  used  to  it.  I  wished  something 
would  happen.  I  kept  making  up  things  to  think 
about— but  none  of  them  was  no  good;  I  got  tired 
of  myself.  But  I  had  to  sit  and  do  it  anyways. 

The  next  thing  I  knew  Clancy  give  me  a  poke 
and  told  me  to  wake  up  and  come  to  bed.  I  wished 
he  would  let  me  alone;  but  he  would  n't.  So  I 
got  up  and  made  myself  walk  up-stairs.  It  was 
another  of  them  old-time  beds  with  its  roof  on  four 
posts  and  it  was  all  piled  up  with  bedclothes  and 
ticks  and  things.  It  was  so  high  that  Clancy  had 
to  give  me  a  h'ist  by  one  foot  like  I  was  getting 
onto  a  horse ;  and  then  it  was  good-bye  to  thinking. 


CHAPTER  XLI 


JIM 

EXT  morning  after  our 
breakfast  —  nobody  had 
theirs  yet— Clancy  took  me 
right  along  with  him  and  we 
both  went  to  work,  me  at  the 
depot  and  him  on  a  stack. 
We  done  the  same  every  day 
and  after  that  we  was  never 
around  the  house  much  ex 
cept  to  board,  which  we  only 
took  breakfast  and  supper. 

But  after  a  few  days  Clancy  decided  to  take 
dinner  from  Mrs.  Valdes,  too,  and  carry  it 
along  with  us  instead  of  buying  it  down  town; 
that  way  he  could  give  her  more  money.  We 
kept  on  going  there  to  sleep;  and  it  was  n't 
over  a  week  till  Clancy  got  all  through  with  his 
stacks.  He  said  I  was  better  off  than  he  was  be 
cause  I  had  a  job  and  he  did  n't.  And  he  could  n't 
get  one,  neither— not  unless  he  went  out  of  town. 
And  that  would  n't  do.  But  he  said  he  had  to  get 
one  whether  he  could  or  not ;  he  had  to  send  money 
to  his  mother  and  he  owed  her  six  dollars  already. 

507 


508  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

So  he  could  n't  go  loafing  around.  But  I  could  n't 
see  how  he  was  going  to  get  one  when  there  was  n  't 
any. 

Right  after  that  was  when  I  got  put  away  from 
the  depot  for  keeps.  The  policeman  told  me  three 
times  that  runners  was  against  the  law  in  that 
town — he  thought  I  was  looking  for  boarders.  I 
told  him  I  was  n't  no  runner  at  all  but  only  a 
watcher ;  but  he  could  n 't  understand  the  differ 
ence. 

And  I  did  n't  want  to  go  and  tell  him  and  get 
him  mixed  up  into  it.  So  he  give  me  the  last 
warning  to  keep  away  from  there.  So  that  was 
the  end  of  that.  We  was  both  out  of  our  jobs  and 
everything  was  going  wrong. 

We  went  away  from  the  house  every  morning 
after  breakfast  just  the  same  as  if  we  was  going 
to  work;  we  did  n't  say  nothing.  I  wTould  rather 
'a'  staid  home  and  watched  the  horse  with  Louise, 
and  maybe  carved  a  little  on  it,— but  Clancy  said 
I  better  just  come  right  along  with  him,  so  I  done 
it.  And  then  there  was  n't  nothing  for  me  to  do 
but  hang  around  the  levee  with  the  dinner  in  my 
hand  and  wait  till  it  was  time  for  Clancy  to  come 
back.  That  was  a  nuisance;.!  always  felt  like 
eating  some  but  did  n't  dast  to  let  myself  start  in. 
That  would  n't  be  fair.  So  I  would  just  sit  down 
next  to  a  ship  and  watch  things— nobody  cares 
around  them.  And  Clancy  would  go  to  work  regu 
lar  to  find  a  job. 

But  that  did  n't  last  long.  One  day  he  come 
back  and  motioned  to  me  with  his  finger  and  says 


JIM  509 

"Come  on."  So  I  got  up  and  followed  him  along 
down  river.  I  thought  maybe  he  had  got  a  job; 
but  he  had  n't.  He  had  looked  for  a  job  long 
enough;  and  now  he  had  made  one  up — he  had 
found  a  condemned  horse. 

Jim  had  been  condemned  over  three  years  now; 
but  he  would  do  for  a  horse  yet,  even  if  he  was  kind 
of  stiff  in  his  bones.  Mrs.  O'Toole  would  'a'  sold 
him  to  somebody  long  ago,  I  guess— only  she 
could  n't  make  up  her  mind.  She  had  got  so  used 
to  his  company  that  when  her  boy  Jerry  would 
threaten  to  sell  him,  she  could  n't  bear  to  part 
with  him  no  more  than  if  he  was  a  dog — but  he 
was  awful  big  to  have  around.  Jerry  would  'a' 
sold  him.  But  when  it  come  right  down  to  it  she 
would  up  and  say  that,  anyways,  Jim  did  n't  eat 
no  more  than  a  goat  and  she  hoped  no  son  of  hers 
would  begrudge  it  to  him.  And  then  she  would 
cry  till  Jerry  would  think  he  had  done  something 
cruel;  and  he  would  give  it  up.  They  both  wished 
they  did  n  't  have  him,  some  ways ;  but  she  would  n  't 
let  him  go.  But  some  ways  you  could  n't  blame 
her. 

You  see,  when  a  fire  horse  gets  his  hoofs  all 
knocked  to  pieces  and  is  used  up  all  over  they  sell 
him  off  for  a  second-hand  horse;  and  if  you  are 
a  friend  of  the  administration  you  can  buy  him 
for  a  few  dollars.  Well,  Jerry,  which  was  driving 
Jim  on  Truck  Eight  then,  was  friends  of  the  admin 
istration.  And  he  was  friends  of  Jim  too;  and 
that  is  why  he  hated  to  see  him  took  off  by  any 
body  at  all  just  because  he  was  cheap.  So  he  got 


510  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

Jim  for  a  little  less  and  took  him  home  himself— 
he  was  a  bargain,  anyways. 

This  Jerry  was  the  same  fellow  I  had  heard  that 
policeman  telling  about  when  I  was  hiding  under 
the  tarpaulin;  it  was  him  that  was  such  a  good 
swimmer.  Clancy  had  got  acquainted  with  him; 
he  met  him  one  day  in  the  river.  And  when  they 
came  to  land  he  told  Clancy  all  about  the  butter 
business  and  how  he  had  failed  and  had  to  go  back 
on  the  department  again. 

It  was  just  after  he  took  Jim  home  that  he  got 
the  chance  to  buy  the  butter  route.  He  did  n't 
want  to  get  into  business,  but  his  mother  was 
always  worrying  for  fear  he  would  get  dumped 
off  of  Number  Eight  driving  so  hard,  and  so  he 
took  the  chance  to  get  out.  Then  Jim  come  right 
in  handy;  he  could  poke  around  with  a  butter 
wagon,  even  if  he  was  used  up.  But  after  Jerry 
found  out  how  he  was  n't  cut  out  for  the  butter 
business  he  had  to  go  back  on  the  department ;  and 
since  then  Jim  had  been  standing  around  in  the 
yard.  And  Jerry's  ma,  which  was  awful  Irish, 
would  n't  let  no  horse  that  had  been  on  Truck 
Eight  ever  go  off  and  come  to  bad  luck ;  and  maybe 
be  abused  and  get  to  be  an  old  iron-and-rags  horse 
or  something.  That  is  how  it  was. 

Well,  as  I  was  saying,  Clancy  motioned  to  me 
and  says  "Come  on";  and  while  we  were  going 
along  he  told  me  about  the  horse  that  was  out  of 
a  job.  And  he  thought  he  could  get  him  one. 
When  we  got  to  the  place  Jim  had  his  head  hung 
over  the  fence  till  the  next  person— he  was  friends 


JIM  511 

of  everybody— would  come  along  and  give  him 
something.  He  was  n't  as  bad  as  you  would  ex 
pect.  It  was  mostly  his  hoofs  that  had  got  knocked 
to  pieces  in  the  hard  runs;  and  they  had  had  a 
good  long  time  to  mend  up.  But  he  was  awful 
bony. 

Clancy  had  already  seen  Jerry  about  it ;  but  it  all 
depended  on  whether  we  could  make  it  all  right  with 
his  mother.  And  after  she  had  looked  Clancy  over 
she  was  satisfied  with  him.  But  we  had  to  stand 
and  listen  to  everything  about  Jerry  again— and 
how  he  was  n't  born  dishonest  enough  to  think  of 
putting  the  two  kinds  of  butter  in  one  jar  and 
shoving  the  test  tube  into  the  good  part  of  it— 
and  how  Jim  had  been  the  best  horse  on  Truck 
Eight  and  was  as  harmless  as  a  child— and  what 
a  brave  boy  Jerry  was  and  what  danger  he  put 
himself  in  with  his  reckless  driving.  She  went  on 
and  on.  But  Clancy  listened  to  every  word;  I 
guess  that  was  why  she  liked  him.  So  he  come  to 
a  bargain  that  he  was  to  have  Jim  just  for  exer 
cising  him  if  he  would  feed  him  oats.  And  it  was 
settled.  It  was  better  than  letting  him  stuff  his- 
self  with  hay  and  just  be  a  relics. 

' '  Git  ap  ! "  says  Clancy.  And  then  me  and  him 
and  Jim  and  Rags  went  away  up  river  to  another 
old  common  part  of  town.  And  pretty  soon  I 
found  what  the  rest  of  it  was. 

That  morning— which  was  pretty  fine  for  winter 
time — Clancy  was  walking  along  up  the  river  with 
his  mind  open  for  a  job;  and  he  come  to  a  vacant 
lot  where  there  was  an  ash-pile  with  all  sorts  of 


512        ,     PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

cast-off  things— tin  cans  and  sardine  boxes  and  an 
old  hat— I  guess  every  old  ash-pile  has  got  a  hat. 
And  standing  along  with  them  was  an  old  hack. 


Clancy  listened  to  every  word 


He  looked  it  over  and  he  found  it  was  all  there  and 
the  wheels  went  round ;  and  that  was  what  put  him 
in  mind  of  Jim. 


JIM  513 

Well,  we  looked  it  over  again ;  and  it  was  about 
like  Jim,  that  did  n  't  have  no  more  the  matter  with 
him  one  place  than  another;  they  matched  them 
selves  all  over.  So  Clancy  went  and  paid  the  five 
dollars  for  it  and  hitched  up.  Clancy  got  up  on 
the  box  and  done  the  driving,  and  me  and  Rags  took 
a  ride  inside ;  and  the  axles  of  it  kept  singing  like 
a  canary  all  the  way.  But  we  got  back  to  Jerry's 
mother's  all  right;  and  then  Clancy  pitched  in 
and  went  all  over  it  with  the  black  paint  he  had 
left— everything  come  in  handy.  He  only  had  to 
mix  in  some  japan  that  was  warranted  to  dry  in 
an  hour.  And  while  it  was  drying  he  repaired 
the  hack  all  over  with  a  tack  hammer  and  some 
oil-cloth  and  ten  cents'  worth  of  gimp.  And  then 
Jerry's  mother  made  him  a  present  of  some  of  the 
old  leavings  of  butter,  which  he  put  on  the  axles 
for  grease ;  and  it  took  the  squeak  all  out  of  them 
and  made  the  wheels  spin  round.  He  put  some 
window  glass  in  the  lamp  that  was  broken  and 
shined  up  the  handles  and  the  hubs.  When  that 
brass  stuff  began  to  shine  against  the  black  the 
whole  thing  looked  good  all  of  a  sudden;  and 
Jerry's  mother  said  it  was  "the  picther  of  a 
hack."  And  then  the  only  trouble  was  it  was  so 
fine  that  Jim  did  n't  look  good  enough  for  it  no 
more. 

"I  doubt  ye  '11  do  well,"  Jerry's  mother  says. 
' '  Ye  are  a  fine  smooth-lookin '  bye ;  an '  a  lady  wud 
pick  ye  out  av  a  WHOLE  LINE  av  hacks.  An' 
wid  ye  standin'  befure  it  they  '11  see  nothin'  but 
th'  brass  hubs  shinin'— an'  ye  '11  have  thim  in  it 


514  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

befure  they  think  to  look  at  th'  outside  av  it  at 
all.  I  doubt  ye  '11  do  well.  An'  ye  '11  not  be  like 
Jerry,  whin  he  wint  into  business ;  because  ye  can 't 
put  on  an  exthra  dab  av  THAT,  ivery  time  a  lady 
shmiles  at  ye. ' ' 

Clancy  had  to  sit  around  for  it  to  dry;  so  he 
went  and  put  on  his  good  suit.  He  was  a  great 
hand  to  go  right  at  things  and  get  them  done. 
When  he  got  back  the  quick  drier  had  got  all  hard. 
So  as  soon  as  it  was  dark  enough  he  went  to  the 
depot ;  and  that  night  he  caught  a  lady. 

Well,  the  policeman  could  n't  drive  me  away 
from  the  depot  no  more ;  I  belonged  with  the  hack. 
After  Clancy  had  tried  it  on  a  few  people  and 
found  it  worked,  he  took  out  a  license ;  so  now  we 
had  a  rights  at  the  depot.  And  every  once  in  a 
while  he  would  take  somebody  in;  'specially  after 
dark. 

What  Jerry's  mother  said  turned  out  to  be  true. 
He  caught  mostly  ladies;  which  they  take  right 
off  to  the  best  man  to  look  out  for  them.  They 
don't  look  so  much  at  the  rig  they  are  getting  for 
their  money  like  a  man  would,  'specially  after 
dark.  Well,  when  he  found  that  his  luck  was  with 
ladies  and  that  they  took  to  him  more  than  the 
ones  that  looked  like  hack-drivers,  he  got  so  that 
he  was  expecting  them.  When  a  lady  would  come 
you  would  think  he  had  been  sent  there  to  watch 
and  wait  for  her.  And,  sure  enough,  there  would 
be  something  about  him  that  when  she  caught  his 
eye  she  would  make  her  mind  up  and  he  would 
bow  her  right  in.  After  he  found  he  was  a  success 


JIM  515 

things  come  natural  to  him;  he  did  n't  even  have 
to  try.  You  would  think  one  lady  told  another, 
but  they  did  n't.  There  was  something  about  it. 
Clancy  said  that  if  he  knew  he  would  take  so  good 
in  business  he  would  'a'  gone  into  it  long  ago. 

The  hack  would  n't  stay  good  looking  very  long, 
but  with  him  doing  something  to  it  every  day  and 
polishing  the  brass  it  was  all  right;  the  only 
trouble  was  with  Jim.  He  was  so  big  and  bony 
he  queered  the  whole  business.  And  he  could  n't 
take  a  tack  hammer  and  make  him  over.  "You 
can't  repair  Jim  with  thirty  cents'  worth  of 
stuff, ' '  I  says.  And  then  he  went  and  done  it. 

Out  to  the  race-tracks  one  day  he  got  a  kind  of 
a  horse  mackintosh  with  a  hood  on  it.  And  when 
it  was  the  least  excuse  of  a  rainy  day  or  a  little 
chilly,  he  would  fix  up  Jim  like  he  was  valuable — 
you  could  n't  see  anything  but  the  four  hoofs  of 
him  and  his  eyes  looking  out  of  the  goggle-holes 
of  it.  His  hoofs  were  all  right  and  all  horses  has 
good  eyes ;  you  would  n  't  'a '  knowed  but  what  we 
had  a  thoroughbred  inside.  And  Jim  could  wear 
it  most  always;  it  is  a  good  thing  that  winter 
down  there  is  the  rainy  season,  it  was  just  Clancy's 
luck.  Jerry's  mother  said  that  if  the  mackintosh 
only  had  spangles  on  it,  Jim  would  'a'  been  good 
enough  to  march  in  the  Mardi-grass  perade— no 
body  would  'a'  knowed. 

One  day  we  got  in  a  high-toned  gambler  that 
wanted  to  go  in  a  hurry  over  to  Number  Six; 
and  he  did  n't  take  time  to  be  particular;  he 
did  n't  know  till  he  was  inside  and  got  to  look- 


516  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

ing  things  over.  When  he  got  out  he  looked 
things  over  more;  and  while  he  was  lifting  the 
corner  of  Jim's  cover  Clancy  stood  and  smiled 
and  did  n't  say  nothing.  It  was  such  a  fraud 
that  the  gambler  seemed  to  like  it.  "Here  's 
your  dollar,"  he  says.  "God  loves  a  cheerful 
bluffer."  After  that  other  sports  would  patronize 
him— for  luck  or  fun,  I  don't  know  which— but 
things  got  better  and  better. 

But  there  was  one  thing  about  the  hack  that  was 
a  secret.  One  of  the  doors  was  out  of  kilter  and 
would  n't  work;  it  was  the  right-hand  one.  It 
only  had  one  hinge  left  and  was  held  in  mostly  by 
the  handle;  so  Clancy  had  to  nail  it  shut  for  fear 
someone  would  try  to  open  it  and  it  would  fall 
out.  That  was  all  right  for  anybody  that  was 
going  to  get  out  on  the  left-hand  side  of  the  street ; 
but  if  they  lived  on  the  right-hand  side  Clancy 
had  to  work  it  like  a  down-river  boat  that  must 
make  a  turn  and  land  with  her  nose  up  stream. 
But  he  knew  how  to  work  it.  If  anybody  was 
going  to  get  out  on  the  right-hand  side— which  he 
could  tell  beforehand  by  the  number  they  was 
going  to— he  would  make  a  mistake  and  drive  past 
it.  No  matter  how  much  they  hollered  up  through 
the  speaking-hole  he  would  happen  to  not  hear 
them  and  drive  past  it;  and  when  he  seen  his  mis 
take  he  would  turn  around  and  come  back.  On  a 
left-hand  landing  it  was  an  up-river  hack;  and  on 
a  right-hand  landing  it  was  a  down-river  hack; 
and  he  always  worked  things  so  that  it  just  seemed 
natural.  He  always  kept  the  door  a  secret;  no  one 
ever  knowed  it. 


JIM 


517 


It  was  all  right  when  he  could  just  stand  with 
his  left  side  to  the  curbstone;  but  it  was  no  good 
for  the  theater,  where  you  could  n't  work  it  to 
suit  yourself.  And  one  time  what  does  he  do  but 
get  a  job  to  take  a  lady  home  from  the  theater 
where  he  had  to  get  in  line  and  come  up  with  his 


"  « God  loves  a  cheerful  bluffer '  " 


518  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

right  side  to  the  block  like  the  rest  of  them;  and 
he  took  it.  I  thought  he  was  crazy.  But  he  done 
it.  We  stood  in  line  with  the  rest  of  them.  And 
when  the  fellow  hollered  out  our  number  to  come 
and  get  the  lady,  Clancy  drove  right  up  to  the 
block  as  if  he  was  going  to  stop  before  the  lady 
with  the  side  that  was  nailed  shut— and  I  thinks 
to  myself,  ''Here  is  where  we  get  put  out  of  busi 
ness."  But  when  we  was  coming  up  to  it  Jim  got 
awful  unmanageable  and  Clancy  jerked  on  the 
lines  and  made  a  great  fuss  as  if  we  had  an  awful 
fiery  horse  inside  of  the  mackintosh;  and  that  way 
he  made  Jim  go  too  far.  And  then  he  backed  up 
so  that  he  wedged  against  the  curb  and  could  n't 
back  to  the  block.  Jim  could  'a'  done  it  but  the 
lines  was  worked  so  that  he  could  n't  tell  what 
Clancy  wanted ;  and  he  got  rattled.  So  then  Clancy 
leans  over  and  smiles  to  the  lady  and  says : 

"If  you  will  just  step  to  the  carriage  block  next 
door  I  can  get  you  in  more  comfortable,  where 
they  are  not  in  such  a  hurry. ' ' 

Then  he  circled  round  in  the  street  and  got  her 
at  the  next  place  on  a  down-river  landing ;  and  he 
got  down  and  handed  her  in  so  polite  that  she 
thought  he  was  very  thoughtful  and  done  her  a 
great  favor.  You  would  n't  'a'  knowed  the  dif 
ference.  He  had  to  do  them  things.  But  he 
did  n't  mind  it. 

I  liked  the  hack  business.  Rags  and  me  could 
go  all  over  and  see  things  without  walking— but 
we  always  had  to  be  back  at  the  depot  at  train 
times.  And  every  day  I  had  to  stay  with  Clancy 


JIM  519 

so  that  if  Valdes  came  in  I  would  know  it  was  him. 
Clancy  was  fixed  now  so  that  it  was  easy  to  find 
boarders;  so  he  got  Mrs.  Valdes  three  of  them. 
One  of  them  staid  three  days  and  one  staid  a 
week ;  but  the  other  turned  out  to  be  a  steady. 

Jean  got  the  tickets  to  take  Manuelo  to  the  Opera. 
When  Clancy  heard  about  it  he  told  Manuelo  he 
would  give  them  a  pass  to  go  in  the  hack;  it 
would  n't  cost  them  nothing.  She  was  awful  sur 
prised  and  said  he  was  too  kind;  but  he  said  that 
did  n't  hurt  nothing,  and  besides  that  she  might 
as  well  be  the  real  thing;  and  I  could  see  she  was 
pleased.  So  that  day  he  shined  the  hack  up  par 
ticular. 

When  we  drove  up  to  the  house  that  night,  her 
and  Jean  was  standing  on  the  step  waiting.  She 
had  on  the  new  hat— and  a  string  of  little  beads 
that  hung  down  from  her  neck  and  looped  at  her 
waist.  She  looked  mighty  pretty  in  the  hat;  she 
made  it  herself.  It  was  n't  nothing  but  that  piece 
of  black  lace,  but  she  had  turned  it  into  a  hat  some 
way  that  made  it  look  like  it  cost  a  lot.  Clancy 
made  me  and  Rags  get  off  the  box;  he  said  we 
could  n?t  go  along.  And  when  they  was  inside  he 
straightened  up  and  threw  his  shoulders  back  and 
held  his  whip  just  right— I  did  n't  know  he  could 
put  on  so  much  style.  You  would  n't  ever  V 
knowed  he  was  acquainted  with  them.  You  would 
'a'  thought  he  was  hired. 

Things  kept  coming  along  about  the  same— noth 
ing  much  doing.  And  just  about  that  time  Clancy 
had  a  falling-out  with  the  old  tailor.  Clancy  never 


520  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

did  like  him,  anyways.  He  said  he  was  no  good 
except  to  sit  around  and  get  paid  for  owning 
something.  And  some  ways  Clancy  was  like  Rags. 
If  he  did  n't  like  a  person  he  just  did  n't  like  him. 
He  would  n't  like  them  even  if  they  fed  him  meat. 
I  have  seen  him  take  it  out  of  their  hand  and 
growl  at  them  all  the  time  he  was  doing  it.  And 
the  more  Clancy  seen  the  old  tailor  the  more  he 
took  objections  to  him. 

One  evening  when  we  come  home  to  supper, 
Clancy  looked  up  and  seen  him  sitting  on  the  gal 
lery—same  as  usual. 

"Look  at  that  old  house-barnacle  sitting  up 
there  on  the  porch  again,"  he  says.  "You  'd 
think  he  had  a  free  ticket  in  the  gallery  to  see  the 
world  go  round." 

' '  But  he  is  retired, ' '  I  says. 

"Retired!  What  right  has  HE  got  to  be  re 
tired?  After  sitting  all  his  life  with  his  legs 
folded.  Them  women  ain't  retired." 

'  *  But  he  owns  the  place, ' '  I  says. 

"That  only  makes  it  WORSE.  What's  wrong 
is  WRONG."  And  after  that  I  dassent  say  no 
more. 

It  got  to  working  inside  of  him  more  and  more 
about  them  women  and  the  tailor.  And  after  a 
while  he  could  n't  see  nothing  around  the  place 
but  the  tailor.  He  brought  his  old  blue  nose  to 
dinner— and  between  times  he  sat  like  a  fat  hop 
toad  up  on  the  gallery. 

When  people  ain't  born  to  like  each  other,  it  is 
going  to  find  some  kind  of  a  way  to  get  out ;  'spe- 


JIM  521 

cially  with  Clancy.  It  come  out  through  the 
weather.  The  tailor  said  it  was  n  't  good  weather ; 
he  could  n't  sit  up  on  the  gallery.  And  Clancy 
started  in  and  took  the  weather's  side.  He  wanted 
to  know  what  right  HE  had  to  be  finding  fault 
with  the  weather.  And  he  said  that  some  people 
would  like  to  have  the  world  made  over  for  them. 
Clancy  was  looking  for  trouble.  And  at  every 
answer  he  bid  higher  for  it.  Then  the  tailor  said 
something  real  grumpy,  which  was  all  Clancy 
wanted;  and  right  then  he  started  in  and  give  the 
stingy  old  tailor  a  definition  of  hisself  from  stem 
to  stern.  Only  he  did  n't  dast  to  say  anything 
that  would  bring  the  women  into  it.  That  might 
get  them  into  trouble. 

After  that  the  old  tailor  was  n't  going  to  have 
him  around  there  no  more;  but  that  did  n't  do 
him  any  good  because  Clancy  knew  it  first.  He 
bid  Mrs.  Valdes  good-bye,  and  said  we  would  rec 
ommend  her  to  anybody  that  came  along— and 
then  we  picked  up  our  things  and  left.  The  tailor 
did  n't  get  the  satisfaction  of  saying  it. 

"It  don't  make  any  difference  for  us  to  leave, 
anyway,"  Clancy  said.  "All  that  is  important  is 
for  us  to  know  where  they  are.  And  we  know  that 
mighty  well.  Anyways,  it  was  worth  it." 

So  we  went  back  and  roomed  with  the  old  lady 
on  Canal  Street  again;  Clancy  said  she  was  a 
square  old  lady  and  needed  the  money  too.  And, 
besides,  he  did  n't  feel  so  bad  about  leaving  Mrs. 
Valdes  since  he  had  got  her  a  steady  which  would 
be  a  substitute  for  himself. 


522  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

One  morning,  when  we  had  been  back  at  the 
Canal  Street  place  awhile,  we  was  going  down  the 
hall  and  we  met  a  lot  of  young  ladies— enough  to 
make  a  Sunday-school  class.  There  was  all  kinds 
of  young  ladies. 

"What  is  this?"  says  Clancy.  "I  think  I  can 
guess.  I  seen  them  come  in  last  night— with  a 
man  at  the  head  of  them. ' ' 

Right  then  one  of  the  doors  opened  and  they  all 
filed  in.  And  while  it  was  open  me  and  Clancy 
stood  and  listened. 

—"Now,  ladies,  we  will  prepare  for  the  first  re 
hearsal—and  I  hope  you  will  all  appreciate  all 
the  advantages  I  am  giving  you  and  no — ";  and 
then  the  door  went  shut. 

But  I  knew  the  rest.  It  was  the  Professor.  He 
had  given  up  the  show-scow  and  was  getting  up  a 
troupe. 

When  he  had  it  started  me  and  Clancy  went  to 
see  them.  They  were  called  Prof.  Lagorio  's  Creole 
Blondes.  But,  pshaw !  they  was  n  't  no  such  thing. 

The  Professor  would  always  have  to  get  up 
something  that  was  n 't.  Then  it  would  be  more  of 
an  attraction.  The  play  which  he  acted  was  that 
he  was  getting  up  a  troupe  and  teaching  them  to 
play  on  the  stage.  And  that  was  all  he  was 
a-doing,  anyways.  And  he  just  hustled  around 
the  stage  and  said  the  things  in  the  play  the  same 
as  if  he  was  himself;  he  did  n't  even  take  the 
trouble  to  act.  And  blame  if  he  was  n't  a  big  hit. 
Here  he  was  pretending  he  was  acting  when  he 
/was  n 't ;  he  was  the  biggest  fraud  I  ever  seen, 


JIM  523 

Things  run  along  the  same  with  me  and  Clancy 
/till  Christmas  come;  but  that  did  n't  amount  to 
much.  I  would  V  liked  to  go  out  and  see  Louise 
and  find  out  if  it  was  true  that  she  did  n't  hang 
up  her  stocking  then  or  get  no  presents.  But  the 
old  tailor  was  mad  at  me,  too,  because  I  belonged 
with  Clancy.  And,  besides,  Clancy  told  me  to 
stick  right  with  him  and  not  be  running  out  to  see 
Louise;  he  said  I  would  get  to  telling  her  all  I 
knew.  So  I  had  to  stay  away.  But  I  says  to  my 
self,  "I  am  going  'out  New  Year's  anyways;  be 
cause  New  Year 's  is  Christmas  down  there. ' ' 

New  Year's  come;  but  Clancy  made  me  stay 
with  him  and  watch  the  trains  come  in.  We 
did  n't  do  as  much  as  you  would  expect  that  day; 
but  we  got  a  couple  of  jobs  in  the  evening.  And 
then  we  had  to  stay  out  pretty  late,  because  Clancy 
could  always  catch  more  people  after  dark  when 
they  could  n  't  see  plain,  and  when  they  would  have 
time  to  get  drunk  and  not  care— 'specially  New 
Year's  eve. 

When  it  was  commencing  to  get  late  enough  to 
be  some  good,  the  old  rooming-house  lady  come 
rushing  down  the  street  with  a  handkerchief  in 
her  hand  that  she  had  been  using  to  cry  with— but 
now  she  was  using  it  to  signal  to  Clancy  while  she 
was  coming.  And  before  she  had  got  to  us  she 
told  him  to,  oh,  please,  come!  somebody  was  run 
ning  away.  Clancy  piled  down  off  the  hack,  and 
Rags  after  him.  I  got  down,  too,  but  Clancy  mo 
tioned  me  back  and  told  me  to  stay  with  Jim  and 
watch  for  business,  "If  you  get  a  drunk,  take  him 


524  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

in  and  keep  him"— and  then  he  run.    And  the  two 
of  them  went  together  into  the  depot. 

And  I  could  sit  there  and  see  nothing.  There 
was  n't  nothing  for  me  but  to  just  watch  other 
people  going  past  and  having  a  good  time.  I 
wished  I  could  see  SOME  excitement.  I  asked  a 
man  going  by  what  time  it  was.  '  *  Eleven  o  'clock, ' ' 
he  says.  That  was  one  hour  before  twelve— which 
I  was  waiting  for.  I  thinks  to  myself,  "The  New 
Year's  noise  will  start  in  after  a  while,  and  I 
would  like  to  see  them  shut  me  off  from  that."  I 
wished  it  would  start  up  or  something.  So  I  just 
sat  looking  at  the  depot  platform  and  waiting 
for  it. 


CHAPTER  XLII 


ALL  HANDS  ON  DECK 


HILE  I  was  thinking 
to  myself,  I  began  to 
feel  somebody  looking 
at  me.  Sometimes  your 
mind  is  like  a  hack 
that  has  a  little  win 
dow  in  the  back;  and 
you  can  see  out  of  both 
ends.  That  is  how  you 
know  that  somebody  is 
looking  at  you.  As 
quick  as  I  knew  it  I 
looked  down  and  seen 
a  man  with  a  valise  in 
his  hand ;  he  was  stand 
ing  and  looking  up  at  me  as  if  he  was  just  making 
up  his  mind.  But  it  did  n  't  take  me  long  to  make 
up  my  mind— it  was  Valdes. 


"Gee  Christmas!  it  is  you,"  I  says. 


This  is 


me.77 

"  So  I  was  thinking, ' '  he  says. 

"And  I  never  seen  you  get  off  the  train,1 
says. 


526  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

"I  did  n't  get  off— I  was  just  going  to  get  on  it. 
I  was  going  up  to  St.  Louis  to  look  for  you. ' ' 

"And  your  name  not  on  the  hotel  registers— 
nor  nothing ! ' ' 

"I  just  arrived;  I  got  in  on  the  boat  from 
Brazil.  Did  you  ever  find  that  Clancy  ?" 

"I  have  got  him  right  here.  And  we  have  got 
your  folks— 

"Where?" 

"Come  right  along,"  I  says.  And  we  did  n't 
take  time  to  say  no  more. 

When  we  got  into  the  depot  it  was  all  excite 
ment—and  a  policeman  was  standing  to  one  side 
a- smiling  and  not  mixing  up  in  the  trouble  at  all. 
Clancy  he  had  the  Creole  Blondes  and  the  Pro 
fessor  backed  up  into  a  corner,  and  holding  them 
there;  his  coat  was  on  the  floor  and  Rags  was 
walking  back  and  forth  a-growling — they  was 
afraid  to  move.  The  Professor  was  trying  to 
smooth  things  over  and  the  old  lady  was  standing 
to  one  side  with  her  eyes  on  Clancy  a-hoping  and 
waiting  to  see  how  it  would  come  out. 

* '  No  more  talk  goes, ' '  says  Clancy.    ' '  Dig  up  ! " 

And  then  he  shut  his  fists  and  squared  off. 
You  could  see  his  arm  through  a  torn  place  in  his 
shirt— which  he  did  n't  have  on  any  undershirt— 
and  it  looked  like  his  big  muscle  was  looking  at  the 
Professor  out  of  a  window.  The  Professor  tried 
to  say  some  more  about  how  it  was  a  little  over 
sight  of  his  and  how  he  would  have  dispatched  back 
at  the  next  station  when  he  did  n't  have  such  a 
pressure  of  business— but  Clancy  was  done  listen 
ing. 


ALL  HANDS  ON  DECK 


527 


Dig  up!'  " 


' t  Dig  up  ! "  he  says.  Right  then  I  seen  Clancy 's 
muscle  jerk  up  on  his  arm— I  could  'most  see  it 
winking  at  me  out  of  the  hole — and  right  away  the 
Professor  seen  it  was  the  third  and  last  call;  he 


528  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

went  down  into  his  pocket  in  a  jiffy.  And  he  took 
out  a  big  roll  of  bills. 

I  ran  up  and  give  Clancy  a  jerk  by  the  back  of 
his  vest.  But  he  would  n't  pay  no  attention  to 
nobody.  He  just  give  me  a  quick  look  and  brushed 
me  away  from  behind  him  with  his  left  hand  like 
I  was  a  fly  and  must  n't  bother. 

And  I  could  n't  get  him  to  hear  nor  see  nothing 
till  he  had  taken  over  every  dollar  of  it,  one  bill  at 
a  time,  and  seen  it  was  just  right— thirty-two  dol 
lars  and  a  half.  When  he  had  it  in  a  bunch  he 
went  and  give  it  to  the  old  lady  and  picked  up  his 
coat.  Just  when  he  was  starting  to  brush  it  off,  I 
give  him  another  pull  and  he  turned  quick  and 
says,  "Why  did  n't  you  stay  on  the  hack?  What 
is  a-aching  you  ? ' ' 

' '  This  is  him, ' '  I  says,  pointing  to  Valdes.  ' '  And 
this  is  him, ' '  I  says,  pointing  to  Clancy. 

They  shook  hands  and  smiled  like  they  was  glad 
to  meet  each  other.  And  they  sized  each  other  up. 

"The  boy  tells  me  that  you  are  acquainted  with 
Mrs.  Valdes.  What  city  is  she  in?" 

"The  city  of  New  Orleans.  I  '11  take  you  right 
out  there— Come  on"— and  Clancy  led  the  way 
right  out  to  the  hack.  "You  must  excuse  me,"  he 
says,  putting  his  coat  on  while  he  went,  ' '  but  I  had 
to  collect  a  bill  for  a  lady. ' ' 

Valdes'  eyes  was  standing  open  and  looking  at 
every  inch  of  Clancy  as  if  he  could  n't  believe 
things  so  all-of-a-sudden.  So  he  did  n't  even  have 
time  to  get  to  talking. 

"Get  right  in  there— it  is  my  hack,"   Clancy 


ALL  HANDS  ON  DECK  529 

says,  throwing  the  valise  right  in  with  him.  And 
Valdes  had  no  more  than  got  his  hand  out  of  the 
road  when  Clancy  slammed  the  door  shut  and  the 
rest  of  us  got  up  on  the  seat. 

We  went  down  Canal  Street  to  the  end  of  it, 
and  then  turned  down  the  river  road.  It  was 
pretty  dark  along  there— it  reminded  me  of  the 
night  I  took  Louise  home— and  the  hack  bumped 
and  rolled  in  ways  that  you  could  n't  see  before 
hand  ;  so  Clancy  just  flicked  the  whip  on  the  mack 
intosh  a  couple  of  times  to  wake  Jim  up ;  and  then 
he  let  him  jog  along  easy.  I  seen  he  was  taking 
time  to  get  over  his  mad;  and,  besides,  I  guess  he 
was  in  a  hurry  to  get  our  five  hundred.  But  after 
a  little,  when  we  was  going  along  steady,  he  took 
a  chew  and  give  me  a  nudge. 

"Well,  kid;  what  do  you  think  of  it?"  he  says. 

"It  is  pretty  good,  ain't  it,  Clancy,"  I  says. 

"I  should  say  yes,"  he  says.  And  he  spit  out 
into  the  night. 

While  we  was  going  along  I  told  him  how  Valdes 
had  been  down  to  South  America  all  the  time  we 
was  waiting  for  him;  but  he  did  n't  say  much;  he 
just  tended  to  Jim  and  watched  that  he  did  n't 
make  a  misstep.  He  was  making  pretty  sure  of 
the  five  hundred. 

When  we  got  to  the  house,  Clancy  jumped  off 
and  turned  the  handle  of  the  hack  to  let  Valdes 
out ;  and  then  he  went  and  rapped  loud. 

The  old  tailor  come  to  the  door.  And  when  he 
seen  it  was  Clancy  he  slammed  it  right  shut  again. 
And  locked  it.  And  bolted  it.  Clancy  was  sur- 

34 


530  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

prised.  He  took  his  whip  and  welted  on  the  door 
good  and  plenty.  And  then  he  took  his  fist  and 
hammered  on  it  louder.  I  guess  Valdes  was  sur 
prised  too;  he  just  stood  and  waited— he  seen  he 
could  leave  it  to  Clancy.  And  he  made  such  a 
noise  that  a  woman  come  to  the  door  of  the  next 
house.  She  wanted  to  see  what  was  the  matter. 

"Excuse  me,  lady,"  says  Clancy;  "but  I  am  just 
starting  in  to  make  a  little  trouble.  We  want  to 
get  Mrs.  Valdes. ' ' 

1 '  Mrs.  Valdes  is  not  there  any  more. '  ' 

"Where  is  she?" 

"Why,  she  has  given  up.  She  went  away  with 
her  daughter  and  son-in-law.  He  is  going  to  put 
up  the  horse. ' ' 

"When?"  says  Clancy. 

"About  an  hour  ago." 

"What  boat?" 

"The  Colon." 

It  took  Clancy  back  just  for  a  minute  (he  never 
expected  that).  And  while  we  was  saying  nothing 
the  woman  shut  the  door. 

"What  time  is  it  by  your  watch— exactly?" 
says  Clancy. 

"Nineteen  minutes  to  twelve,"  says  Valdes. 

And  then  Clancy  started  in  to  talk.  He  put  to 
gether  what  that  woman  said  and  made  a  story  of 
it  and  told  it  while  I  would  'a '  been  standing  there 
thinking  it  out. 

"Your  daughter  was  going  with  a  fellow— He 
was  carving  a  horse— Wooden  St.  Martin  for  a 
church— He  has  it  done— Got  five  hundred  dollars 
for  it— Married  your  daughter— They  are  taking  a 


ALL  HANDS  ON  DECK  531 

trip  to  put  it  up  on  the  church— Your  wife  has 
gone  along— To  South  America— Colon's  sailing  is 
at  midnight,  twelve  o  'clock. ' ' 

"Gone  for  ME— at  last,"  says  Valdes.  "Eigh 
teen  minutes  to  twelve— Can  you  get  me  there  1" 

"Sure  thing— duck!"  says  Clancy.  And  we  all 
ducked  to  the  hack. 

The  door  slammed  on  Valdes  as  quick  as  a  trap 
and  Clancy  grabbed  the  mackintosh  off  of  Jim 
and  threw  it  away  like  he  was  stripping  him  for  a 
fight.  We  did  n't  bother  about  Bags— we  climbed 
up  on  the  box  and  Clancy  brought  down  the  whip. 

It  was  the  first  time  we  had  ever  struck  Jim  on 
his  bare  hide  before.  He  jerked  his  head  up  sur 
prised  ;  and  then  he  stuck  his  nose  out  and  kept  it 
there.  Jim  knew  right  away  something  was  up. 

Jim  was  n't  no  gaited  horse— that  was  one  rea 
son  he  was  n't  worth  much.  You  see  he  was  n't 
just  a  race-horse  and  he  was  n't  just  a  draft- 
horse;  he  did  n't  know  any  gait  but  just  run  and 
pull  at  the  same  time,  and  he  done  it  by  jumps. 
But,  as  Clancy  said,  he  was  "all  horse,"  which  he 
had  to  run  natural;  and  his  business  was  to  take 
hold  of  something  pretty  heavy  and  put  it  there 
pretty  quick.  And  that  is  why  that  when  we 
stirred  him  up  he  would  want  to  lope  in  the  shafts 
and  we  would  always  have  to  keep  him  from  it; 
he  was  a  big  bony  galloper  that  when  you  turned 
him  loose  in  a  hack  it  would  make  you  mad.  But 
now  it  was  different.  Clancy  stirred  him  up  and 
turned  him  loose  his  old  way.  And  he  could  go 
better  than  you  would  'a '  thought. 

After  we  got  around  the  end  of  the  old  market, 


532  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

Clancy  gave  him  another  cut  and  we  struck  down 
the  long  road  again  along  the  line  of  ships. 
Clancy's  hands  was  working  back  and  forth,  giv 
ing  him  his  head  and  holding  him  up  at  the  same 
time;  and  he  spoke  to  Jim  and  encouraged  him 
along.  You  see  he  wanted  Jim  to  understand  his 
turning  loose  was  0.  K.  and  we  did  n't  have  no 
objections. 

It  was  all  quiet  along  there,  so  we  did  n't  have 
to  turn  out  and  dodge  anybody —which  was  a  good 
thing.  There  was  n't  much  sound  except  a  rattly 
spoke  and  Jim's  hoofs  pounding  on  the  dirt — ker- 
plunk-kerplunk,  kerplunk-kerplunk,  kerplunk-ker- 
plunk.  The  road  was  twice  as  bumpy  as  when  we 
come ;  it  was  out  of  one  hollow  and  into  another, 
a-dipping  to  this  side  and  to  that,  and  the  hack 
taking  a  jump  at  every  gallop.  I  kept  watching 
the  ships  sailing  by,  and  hoped  a  wheel  would  n't 
bust. 

We  had  n't  passed  more  than  twenty  or  thirty 
ships  when  I  began  to  worry.  Jim  was  sounding 
different.  He  was  going  kerplink,  kerplink. 

11  Clancy,"  I  hollers;  "his  loose  shoe  is  going 
worse ! ' ' 

' '  Let  it, ' '  he  says.    ' '  He  '11  cast  it. ' ' 

After  that  I  could  hear  one  hoof  keeping  time 
all  by  itself— kerplink-kerplink,  kerplink-kerplink, 
kerplink-kerplink.  I  just  braced  my  feet  and 
hoped  that  the  hack  and  Jim  would  hold  out. 

But  we  had  n't  gone  much  farther  when  I 
plum'  give  up.  The  New  Year's  whistles  were 
starting  to  blow.  And  we  was  n't  half  way  there. 


ALL  HANDS  ON  DECK  533 

I  heard  a  cotton-compress  starting  up  away  off. 
Then  the  noise  run  over  to  another  part  of  town 
and  others  joined  in ;  and  right  away  it  started  up 
in  different  parts  like  noise  was  catching.  And  in 
a  minute  the  whole  of  New  Orleans  had  it  bad— 
and  the  ships  worst  of  all.  When  them  ships 
started  you  could  n't  hear  the  city  at  all;  there 
was  a  noise  all  together  like  the  ocean  had  just 
woke  up  and  started  to  holler.  There  was  ships' 
bells  ringing,  and  tugs  a-screamlng,  and  river  boats 
going  it  in  a  chorus,  and  siren  whistles  yowling,  and 
ocean  steamers  with  their  voices  coming  up  from 
down  deep— I  never  knew  there  WAS  such  a 
noise. 

Besides  the  general  all-over  noise,  the  boats  that 
were  passing  right  next  to  us  would  sound  loudest 
in  our  ears,  and  Jim  would  take  us  at  every  jump 
into  a  different  sound  of  it ;  we  went  past  an  ocean 
tramp  that  made  the  air  tremble  while  we  passed 
through,  and  then  a  siren  that  was  going  it  like  a 
steam  cat,  and  then— just  as  we  was  passing  a 
lamp-post— a  ship's  bell  started  clanging  all  of  a 
sudden.  I  seen  Jim  perk  up  his  ears  and  lay  them 
back  and  take  a  bigger  jump  than  ever;  and  then 
he  dug  right  into  it.  I  thought  he  was  going  as 
fast  as  he  could.  But  he  was  n't— not  till  now. 
He  went  into  a  regular  hook-and-ladder  gallop; 
and  then  I  grabbed  for  the  seat.  I  guess  he  thought 
it  was  a  General  Alarm.  Every  time  he  jumped  I 
thought  he  was  going  clean  out  of  the  shafts.  The 
old  springs  of  the  hack  would  go  clean  down  and 
touch  bottom  in  a  hollow,  and  then  they  would 

34* 


534  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

open  and  give  the  hack  a  jump  like  off  a  spring 
board  clean  over  the  next  vacant  place.  I  had  to 
hold  on  tight.  But  Clancy  just  had  his  feet 
braced;  and  his  hands  was  going  back  and  forth 
like  he  was  shoving  Jim  harder. 

A  city  thinks  it  can  make  a  noise.  With  some 
factories  scattered  around !  But  what  can  it  do 
against  a  few  miles  of  ships  that  are  drawn  right 
up  in  line  together  like  an  army  of  steam-boilers. 
When  they  start  to  holler  against  a  city  you 
would  n't  know  the  city  was  there.  A  cotton- 
compress  don't  sound  like  meow.  And  it  was  get 
ting  worse  and  worse.  It  was  like  a  devil  had  come 
in  from  the  ocean  and  made  all  the  ships  into  a 
steam-organ  five  miles  long;  and  you  could  hear 
it  like  running  fingers  all  up  and  down  the  water 
front  with  a  ship's  boiler  behind  every  note,  and 
sometimes  coming  down  on  the  whole  shooting- 
match  and  working  the  chimes  along.  Once  in  a 
while  when  we  struck  a  little  vacant  place  in  the 
noise  I  could  hear  Jim  going  kerplunk,  kerplunk— 
I  guess  he  had  cast  the  shoe.  What  Valdes  was 
thinking  I  don't  know,  except  he  was  just  holding 
himself  inside  of  the  hack. 

After  a  while  it  seemed  to  me  I  heard  a  voice 
trying  to  get  out  of  the  speaking-hole.  I  took  a 
good  grip  and  put  my  ear  down  and  listened. 

' '  Did  you  say  anything  ? "  I  hollered. 

"  A  thousand— Make  it  a  THOUSAND— We  've 
only  got—  But  just  then  we  went  through  the 
noise  of  a  ship  that  was  drowning  out  everything 
around  there. 


ALL  HANDS  ON  DECK  535 

When  I  seen  a  little  chance  I  hollered  into 
Clancy 's  ear.  ' '  A  thousand— he  says  he  '11  make  it 
a  THOUSAND." 

He  just  turned  his  head  a  second— which  I  seen 
he  heard— and  then  he  tended  right  to  the  driving 
again.  And  next  we  passed  some  ships'  bells  that 
were  striking  like  it  was  a  hundred  o'clock. 

Jim  must  'a'  thought  the  whole  city  of  New 
Orleans  was  burning  down.  And  we  was  going  to 
put  it  out.  Anyways,  he  went  like  it.  He  could  n't 
'a'  done  better  if  the  whole  cotton-wharf  was  burn 
ing  again. 

I  did  n't  care  no  more.  It  was  like  I  was  riding 
along  on  top  of  the  noise  and  nothing  would  dast 
to  happen.  Sometimes  you  feel  that  way.  Only  I 
was  kind  of  glad  that  we  had  that  straightaway 
run — no  corner  to  turn  and  no  one  to  turn  out  for. 
If  there  had  been  a  corner  on  the  way  Jim  would 
'a'  made  one  of  them  fire-engine  turns — and  slewed 
the  hack  clean  off  its  axles.  You  could  n't  'a' 
stopped  him. 

The  hack  had  stood  so  many  jumps  that  I  guessed 
it  would  stand  more  of  the  same.  Sometimes  it 
felt  as  if  half  our  wheel  tracks  was  vacant  spaces; 
and  I  hoped  it  would  be  good  for  the  finish. 

And  it  was.  Clancy  leaned  back  on  the  lines 
when  we  come  to  the  Colon ;  but  he  could  n  't  bring 
Jim  in  all  of  a  sudden.  He  got  him  to  almost  sit 
ting  down  and  then  he  had  to  see-saw  on  the  lines 
to  make  him  stand. 

While  he  was  doing  that,  Valdes  jumped  out  of 
the  hack,  seen  he  was  at  the  Colon,  and  made  a 


536  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

bee-line  for  her.  Her  wheel  was  churning  a 'ready 
and  two  sailors  was  laying  hold  of  the  ropes.  He 
got  on  her  at  the  last  instant ;  and  by  the  time  me 
and  Clancy  got  there  she  had  dropped  fifteen  or 
twenty  feet  out.  She  might  as  well  have  been  to 
South  America. 

Valdes  was  n't  in  sight.  He  was  n't  leaning 
over  the  side  to  say  anything  or  bid  us  good-bye. 
He  had  gone  right  to  the  inside  of  the  ship  on  his 
own  business.  And  she  kept  going  out;  and  then 
began  to  drop  farther  and  farther  down  the  river. 

While  we  was  standing  there  a-looking,  Rags 
came  in  about  three  minutes  behind  time.  He  sat 
down  beside  us,  panting,  and  let  his  tongue  hang 
away  out  for  the  fresh  air  to  blow  on  it.  Old 
Jim's  sides  was  going  in  and  out  like  bellows— I 
bet  he  was  catching  breath  from  five  years  back — 
and  his  nostrils  was  working.  The  noise  was  be 
ginning  to  peter  out  and  leave  it  pretty  still.  The 
moon  had  come  out  and  was  looking  at  its  face  in 
the  water.  I  watched  her  going  farther  and  farther 
away  and  kept  a-thinking.  There  was  lots  to  think 
about;  'specially  the  thousand.  And  besides  that 
I  bet  there  was  lots  of  surprise  and  gladness  and 
things  inside  of  the  ship;  and  that  would  be  nice 
to  think  about— if  it  was  n't  for  the  thousand 
which  was  going  along  with  them.  Clancy  just 
folded  his  arms  and  looked  at  it  awhile.  Then  he 
turned  and  looked  at  the  rest  of  the  outfit.  And 
then  he  says  to  me :  "  Well,  would  n  't  that  take  the 
lead  out  of  your  pencil." 

P.  S.— Elkins  has  looked  it  over.     He  says  the 


ALL  HANDS  ON  DECK  537 

story  was  good  before  I  started;  but  it  ain't  what 
he  expected.  But  that  is  all  there  is  to  Valdes' 
story  without  I  would  go  on  and  let  out  a  lot  of 
my  own  business;  and  what  is  the  sense  in  that? 


What  Louise  says  about  it  is  right.  She  says  that 
if  she  was  me  she  would  keep  my  business  to  her 
self.  So  would  I.  And  keep  my  money  till  some 
day  we  need  it.  But  I  guess  it  ain't  no  more  than 
right  for  me  to  put  down  that  Valdes  did  n't  go 
and  cheat  us  out  of  that  thousand ;  he  was  n't  that 


538  PARTNERS  OF  PROVIDENCE 

kind  of  a  sport.  When  they  got  back  he  looked  us 
up  and  paid  us.  Then  me  and  Clancy  went  and 
had  a  big  supper.  He  took  beefsteak  smothered  in 
onions.  I  took  the  same  and  ice-cream.  The  rest 
of  us  is  all  getting  along  as  good  as  you  could 
expect ;  and  Louise  is  going  to  school. 

The  last  I  heard  of  Griswold  he  was  mating  up 
on  the  Eed  River.  Who  would  'a'  thought  he  was 
such  a  good  swimmer  ? 


THE  END 


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BERKELEY 

Return  to  desk  from  which  borrowed. 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


•saA 

3Q 


MAR  12  '68  -9  PW 


LD  21-100m-M,M9(B7146sl6)476 


Stewart,  C« 

D. 

S849 

P. 

Partners  of 

providence 

NJ30796 


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